The Final Page, Part Two
Been running from these feelings for so long, telling my heart I didn't need you.
Pretending I was better off alone, but I know that it's just a lie.
So afraid to take a chance again, so afraid of what I feel inside.
By noon the next day, Barney hasn't heard anything from Ted or Robin, but that's no cause for worry. Things are going along exactly as he thought they would. It's possible Ted hasn't even seen Robin since they got back in town late last night, and that's not exactly news you break over the phone. It's also entirely possible that Ted is still wavering over what to do. But that's okay too. He has faith that Ted will come through for them and do the right thing in the end – if not, that's what Ranjit is for.
What's more, the silence doesn't necessarily mean that Ted hasn't told Robin. It's going to take a lot of heat to get her feet moving. He always expected it to run up to the very end; that's how the rooftop proposal works, otherwise Robin would just confront him at his apartment before the romantic scene was set. He fully anticipates she'll war with herself mightily and only jump into action at the last possible second.
That's where Ranjit comes in too. Barney ordered the limo for Ted knowing that Robin will be with him. She's certainly independent enough to go stag, but it's a foregone conclusion they'll come together since Ted can't handle himself alone at big events like these. He gets way too nervous and either turns whiny or makes a fool of himself. That's why Robin will agree to go with him as moral support whether Ted's told her about the proposal plans or not.
And with Robin in that limo, between Ted and Ranjit, he's hoping one of the two men will be able to convince her to make one last try, go up on that rooftop, and go get her man.
At six minutes after two, Robin's sitting at the familiar booth at MacLaren's flipping through her phone waiting for the others when Ted, Marshall and Lily come walking into the bar. Everyone's excited for Ted and rightfully so; it's the biggest night of his career. But after joking with them about how nervous he is, how everything is coming out of him in liquid form, and his nightmares of King Kong, what ends up getting the group's full attention – hers most of all – is when Ted reveals offhandedly that Barney's not going to be there.
She made her up her mind yesterday not to try to win Barney over or break up his relationship anymore, but she still has her awesome dress for tonight she'd told him about….and if he happened to think she looked smokin' hot that wouldn't be her fault. Barney had at least seemed excited at the prospect of her slutting up. He never once told her he wasn't coming when they talked about it. Okay, technically he'd been jinxed and unable to speak but he could have mouthed it, or signed it, or in some other way stopped her from going on describing her dress if he never intended to see it anyway.
Robin tries to hide her own personal disappointment but putting it off on Ted, and there's a certain truth in that too. She has no doubt Barney can talk his way out of any influential GNB event though as an executive he should technically be there. But on such a huge night for Ted, what could be so important that Barney would miss it?
Marshall and Lily quickly label themselves Ted's "real friends", but Ted purposefully dodges all of her questions and continues to be evasive. She's not buying it. Once it's just the two of them alone, she crosses her arms both to intimidate him and to protect herself against whatever she's about to learn. But when she asks him pointblank what the real reason is behind Barney's bailing Ted claims to legitimately not know. Maybe it's true or maybe he's lying; she can't tell. But something must be up. Back in the day she'd assume Barney was going off to run some play – but, no, even plays wouldn't have overruled his chance to be a bro to Ted. He'd just pick up some girl afterwards or at the party.
The whole thing is very odd, but just as she's trying to work it out in her mind Ted halts her thoughts by asking her to be his date. Poor Ted is so nervous. He could really use a friend by his side tonight to boost his confidence. She's sure that's why he asked her to be his "date" for the evening. And why not? She's already got the knockout dress. Maybe a big night out on the town on the arm of the man of the evening is exactly what she needs right now to cheer her up.
On the rooftop of the World Wide News Building six hours later, Barney is busy adding the finishing touches, making sure everything looks perfect. It took some coaxing of security to access the roof after hours, and keep everyone else away from it, but coaxing is what he does best and it certainly helped that they all knew him well already. So the rooftop has been his from six o'clock on and he's transformed into a wonderland. He had some help stringing up the lights, but he hung the mistletoe himself and placed the lanterns. That detail had to be perfect. He couldn't entrust it to anyone else. In fact he's just finishing lighting the last lantern now, his mind in overdrive thinking about what's to come from Step 15 on.
He has a million things he wants to say to Robin, things that have been endlessly on the tip of his tongue begging to be expressed, things he's spent years holding back. There's so much they still need to talk about and haven't. Most of all, he wants to tell her how immeasurably he loves her and has never stopped loving her. But he knows Robin well. Her first reaction to discovering his play will be outrage. All of the things he wants to say and everything they need to talk about will have to come later. A proposal is the only thing she'll truly hear.
Placing The Playbook's final page strategically underneath the mistletoe, Barney starts scattering rose petals across the roof, praying for a different result with this batch than the last.
Getting into the limo – a very nice touch they have Barney to thank for – Robin straightaway receives a compliment from Ted to which she breaks out in a huge grin. It's nice to feel attractive to a man, to have her body and looks recognized again after Barney was so able to resist them. It's a sweet gesture from Ted and just the confidence boost she needs.
It's great to see Ranjit again too. He's an honorary member of the gang. It's impossible not to relate him with Barney, which hurts, but they did have some lovely times with Ranjit driving them around. He compliments her too, and between the two of them Robin's back to feeling sexy and good about herself again. This evening might not be a total loss after all. But she's not going to steal focus from Ted's accomplishment. "Oh, thanks," she says to Ranjit, "but tonight is about my main man, Mosby."
"Really? Why?" he asks innocently, ensuring that Robin has no idea he's there as a spy, sent to make sure she gets delivered straight to Barney.
"Ted, tell Ranjit the huge thing that's happening tonight," she requests proudly, her mind entirely on her friend's achievement.
There's a slight pause on his end. Then he says the last thing she's expecting to hear. "Barney's getting engaged."
She blinks forcefully and her smile falls. She went from a measure of happiness to agony just like that. This doesn't make sense, yet it does, and it feels like her world is crashing down around her. It's so quiet; the only sound is the heating vents running in the limo. That silence is a deafening backdrop to the dread that's swallowing her whole.
It's like déjà vu. It's like that day in May all over again – only much worse because now she's already lived through one close call and the miracle of that true disaster averted. She knows what it's like since then to have another real shot with Barney, to hear him profess feelings she'd still stubbornly clung to the hope that maybe he really had meant on some level. And then he'd kissed her and she'd gotten to experience that feeling all over again for the first time in a year. To lose him yet another time, permanently, when she'd come so close to getting him back, when she'd thrown her chance away again, it's too much. It's too horrible. Her mind and heart can't process it, can't deal with it at all.
She blinks several more times, trying to comprehend it, trying simply to breathe. She turns to Ted, closing her eyes a moment as she struggles to form words. "B – Barney's getting engaged?" she stutters.
"He asked me to keep it a secret but I thought you deserved to know in case you…wanted to do something about it. Do you?"
So Barney wanted him to keep it a secret, his big secret romantic proposal to Patrice – and that explains his absence from the GNB opening. But what does Ted mean? What is he thinking 'in case she wanted to do something about it'? What is there to do about it? She can't make Barney love her. She can't force him not to marry someone else.
Oh god, he's marrying someone else. Her mouth falls open in horror, her eyes wide, her chest rising and falling in the short quick breaths of an oncoming panic attack.
Just seconds after Ted let the news slip, Ranjit slyly put up the partition he can totally still hear through so that he could text Barney unseen, informing him that Ted told Robin. Now he continues to play his role gamely by putting the pressure on her too. "Do you, Robin?" he seconds.
Robin's face twists into a look of pure anguish. She's powerless to stop this. She's out of control of her feelings, of her life. And she can't breathe. She can't breathe. She's suffocating in here.
She turns toward the window, to the cool open city outside, but that doesn't do it either and she continues to desperately fight to get a grip, to go on, to make it through just the next second and then the next one after that. Just take it one moment at a time without losing it. Because her heart is shattered but somehow, amazingly, still beating; shallow breathes still pushing into her aching lungs.
She blinks rapidly over and over again, struggling to get a hold of her emotions, to push down the pain and despair. She pulls on her ear distractedly, not even knowing what she's doing. It's like an out of body experience. She's heard that in situations of extreme trauma the mind and heart can totally disconnect from the body, and she feels that's what's happened to her now. For a moment it's like she can look down and see herself in the limo next to a concerned Ted, completely frozen in shock and distress and absolute suffering.
"So…what do you want to do?" Ted asks, and she lets out a gush of air, a panicked sigh.
The emotions are overwhelming her and the blinking starts up again because she doesn't know what to do. What she wants is to turn back time. Make it last November and she'll rush to MacLaren's alone and never tell Barney no. Make it four weeks ago and she'll pull him closer instead of pushing him away. She'll take him back to her bedroom with her and the two of them could be going to the GNB opening together tonight. But she can't do any of those things.
What she wants to do is make Barney change his mind, make him see her again like he used to. But she just spent weeks trying and she knows it's no use. There is no turning back time, and the present that she's created for herself makes it impossible for her to do much of anything to stop this unthinkable future where Barney is married to Patrice from becoming a reality. Trying to block out the image, she closes her eyes, puts her head back, and breathes deeply.
Ranjit brings down the partition, inserting himself into the debate at a timely moment. Not only is that his assignment but these are things he's been dying to say to both Robin and Barney for a long time. "Robin, I do not want to meddle, but it is like the classic love song says…"
From there he goes into singing some entirely non-English song, and whatever hope Robin had that he might genuinely be able to offer her words of help and guidance disappears and she looks away.
But how fitting that he thinks the story of her and Barney is like a love song. The perfect one appropriate to their current situation comes flooding into her mind: There is love in your body but you can't get it out. It gets stuck in your head, won't come out of your mouth. Sticks to your tongue and shows on your face that the sweetest of words have the bitterest taste. Darling heart, I loved you from the start, but you'll never know what a fool I've been.
And she has been a fool. That's why for her the song remains "I'll Always Love You" but for him it's "I'm All Out of Love" or perhaps "The End of the Road". No, she cynically corrects herself, "Down on Bended Knee".
She puts her hand to her forehead in despair, trying to ride out the pain, but the song choices are correct. It's too late for them now. Barney doesn't feel the same way. He's about to propose to another woman. That knowledge tears her apart. It utterly destroys her – her thoughts, her world, her heart. But there is nothing she can do. She's already tried to stop it and she knows how it ends every time. She can't go back to that again; it hurts too much.
Ted puts the partition back up to give them some privacy and Robin takes another deep breath, licking her lips to ward off the nausea. "I appreciate what you're doing. But I'm not – " Closing her eyes, she fixes her determination. " – chasing after Barney anymore." She can't keep doing that to herself, setting herself up for heartbreak over and again. It's humiliating and demoralizing and, most of all, excruciatingly painful. "I – I just got done being crazy about all that." And, okay, her heart was never officially 'done' but after the low point of trying to fire Patrice she was forcing herself to be. "I mean, why would I want to throw myself back in that pit?"
"Because you're in love with him."
His words splash her with the cold water of truth. "No. I'm not," she shoots back vehemently, like if she can say it with enough conviction in her voice she can will it to be so. But it's a lie and she knows it. Still, she compels herself to say it. Just say it. Lie. Lie and say it's okay. Except the words back up in her throat, so utterly false her tongue trips up on the magnitude of the lie, and her telltale blinking gives it away for what it is. But she finally manages to get it out, even though the words do taste bitter and wrong. "I'm happy for him."
"So it doesn't bother you that Barney Stinson is gonna propose to another woman – " Ted saying it again makes it all too true and Robin sighs heavily from the sting of it, the pain she's unable to pretend away. " – on top of the World Wide News building?"
On top of the World Wide News building?
Why? Why there of all places? That little detail is salt in the already gaping wound. "Wait, why the top of the World Wide News building?" she asks far too quickly and with far too much interest for a woman who doesn't care, isn't bothered by it, and is happy for him.
"I guess it's Patrice's favorite spot in the city."
No. NO. "Oh!" Incensed, Robin slams her fist against the seat in resentment. "DAMMIT, PATRICE, THAT'S MY FAVORITE SPOT IN THE CITY!" she screams, ignoring Ted's answering "Whoa". She barely hears it, scarcely even remembers Ted's there at all.
Because the roof of the World Wide News building is her spot. It was their spot. How many lunches did they share there last summer? And even this past summer from time to time. That was their time, when she got him away from Quinn and he was just hers again. He'd laugh at her jokes and smile at her and….and Patrice can't have that too. She doesn't get that too. It isn't fair.
Struggling to breathe beneath the crushing weight of outrage, offense, and just plain pain, her hands sweep up over her forehead, pushing her hair back away from her face as she attempts to take deep, calming breathes.
Ted gets a chime of a new text then and reads it aloud. "Ranjit says 'whoa'."
Robin just tries to keep focusing on deep breathing yoga techniques. "Okay," she admits, exhaling forcefully, "maybe that one…detail….." Twists the knife already embedded in her heart, rips it out and then stomps on it. It's torment and cruelty added to the unimaginable pain she's already experiencing. "….stings a little bit, but…that doesn't mean I'm in love with Barney," she insists. But even her resolve is cracking. She doesn't believe herself. There's no way Ted believes her.
Another text comes in. "'Sounds like she's in love with Barney'," Ranjit helpfully adds to the conversation.
Robin closes her eyes and leans her head back against the seat, taking another long, heavy breath. Glancing over at Ted, she wants so much to be able to tell him it isn't so and actually mean it. If she doesn't love Barney, if it's not true, then she doesn't have to hurt this way. She doesn't have to feel this pain. She can just go to the opening with Ted and have a good time. She can get up tomorrow morning and face another day. She won't have to keep dying inside.
She looks back out the window, steeling her resolve. She's Robin Scherbatsky. She can shut off her feelings. She can control her emotions. She can stop loving the people who don't love her back. That's what she had to do with her father when she moved out, right? "Look, I…I hope it goes well for Barney. I really do." And a part of her means that. When she pulled herself out of that pit, she was being honest when she said this isn't Barney's fault; he didn't do anything wrong and he deserves his happiness. Yet the other part of her needs that happiness to be with her – no matter what it takes – or her heart threatens to not go on beating.
And that's the part of her she's just going to have to shut down. "But, tonight, there is no place I would rather be than at your building, celebrating with you."
"Are you sure?" Ted questions.
She'll never be sure. Maybe she is making another mistake. Maybe she'll hate herself in the future for not trying again even though it very well wouldn't have made a difference. But she's cried over him one too many times. She can't do it anymore. She doesn't have the strength to get hurt that way again, to have him reject her to her face one final time. "Ranjit," she proclaims, "to Teddy Westside's kickass building."
Ranjit starts making the drive but, unbeknownst to Robin, he gets a text from Ted telling him to take her to the World Wide News building instead. He was already heading there.
In the back, Robin sits looking out the window blankly, biting her thumb, trying so hard not to think about what's happening right now up on her roof. Trying to just focus on Ted and the new GNB building. Okay, not the GNB part – that makes her think of Barney – but trying to think of Ted's accomplishment. Focus on that and nothing else, she commands herself. Don't think about the pain and maybe then you won't have to feel it. Ignore it and maybe it will go away or at least lessen to the point of being bearable.
In an effort to do just that, Robin looks back to Ted, physically turning her focus where her mind and heart are failing to stay subconsciously. "Hey, do you realize that something you thought up in your head now exists as a part of the Manhattan skyline?" She manages a small but authentic smile for him and the many years he tried, the late nights back when they were roommates that she used to see him spending hunched over his drafting desk, trying to make his dream come true. "That's huge."
"It's just a building. I mean I'm incredibly young for such an achievement. But it's just a building." He falls into self-deprecation before eventually allowing, "Okay, you're right. It's huge."
"It is huge." It's a cause for celebration. Even though her world is crumbling, he still deserves to be applauded. "You're the star of the party. And who knows? Maybe the Future Mrs. Ted Mosby is gonna be there." She smiles encouragingly to him, offering him hope towards his greatest dream, and has absolutely no idea that in so automatically excluding herself from the title she's breaking his heart.
The limo comes to a stop a second later and Robin sits up to look out the window, preparing to see this great accomplishment of his up close and personal. But even as her gaze first penetrates the glass she instantly knows this chunk of pavement is far too familiar. "Wait, this isn't your – " Her heart falls and yet skips simultaneously at what she does see, and she sighs, slumping back against the seat. "This is the World Wide News building."
"Go get him," Ted instructs her.
He just doesn't seem to understand. Going and getting Barney is not an option. Barney isn't inclined to be gotten by her, and it's a matter of self-protection and basic survival at this point. She's already embarrassed herself over him countless times. She won't do it anymore. "I told you. I am done chasing Barney." Her words are firm and even a bit angry now because he's made her face this again, this time literally, when she was trying so hard not to think about it. "Now can we please go to your party?"
"Robin, do you want to spend tonight – " Knowing what's coming she throws her head back against the seat in frustrated agitation. She can't handle this. She can't fight herself and him too. " – making small talk with a bunch of bankers in a daring yet refined contemporary masterpiece that King Kong should feel lucky to climb? Or do you want to follow your heart?"
Her strength begins to crumble at the mention of following her heart. Why does Ted have to keep hurting her by bringing it up this way? Why can't he just let it go? "Why do you keep insisting that I have feelings for Barney?"
"Because you do."
Ranjit's new text saves Robin from answering and she sighs, looking back out the window at the WWN building before them….and Barney, up on her rooftop. She starts to pick disconsolately at the skirt of her dress, simply needing the distraction.
"The point is," Ted starts in again, "you're not over Barney. That's why you freaked out about him proposing on the roof of the World Wide News building."
Hearing him repeat it – and now being right here where it's going to take place – makes it so painfully tangible. It's happening. It's really happening. Tonight. Right now. Tears form in her eyes as she turns to Ted. They clog her voice even as she tries to continue to argue. "I did not….freak out. It's just.…." She falters as the emotions swell again – horror, panic, sorrow, anger at Patrice, anger at herself. "…a teeny, tiny bit annoying that…" She looks away from Ted and loses her line of reasoning as her heart takes over. "…I am the one who showed her that roof in the first place! DAMMIT, PATRICE!" she yells to the building, to where Barney may be proposing at this very second. Emotions are boiling over uncontainably, exploding out of her, and she feels like she can't breathe again.
"Whoa."
Struggling for air, she shakes her head and closes her eyes at the scene that's forming in her brain – Barney hugging Patrice; kissing her; down on one knee, asking her to be his wife. Doesn't Ted think she wants to follow her heart and stop that? Doesn't he know that it's torture not to? But she doesn't have that privilege anymore. She lost that chance. She threw it away. And now it's too late to do anything but make a fool of herself again.
"What do you want me to do, Ted?" she asks, but really she's asking her heart, her heart that refuses to stay quiet, that keeps shouting at her to do something. Do something. But what can she do now? "Run up to that roof, knock the ring out of Barney's hand and say, 'Sorry to interrupt, but you should be with me'?" That's the reality of doing something now – and it's a stark and painful picture, a nosedive into nothing but even greater heartache.
The car falls into silence. There's nothing but the rhythm of her heart pounding a tattoo that with every thump begs her to stop Barney, with every beat screams that she loves him.
"Is that what you want?" Ted asks as Robin's first tear falls, overflowing from her eye to kiss her skin.
She feels like all the fight has gone from her and a sad, shattered shell is all that's left behind. "No. I don't." That's why she's crying, because of course that's not what she wants. She doesn't want to keep being the third wheel, the hanger-on. She can only do that so many times before she's shattered beyond repair. She sighs, barely getting the words out as she breaks down even further. "I can't keep making an ass out of myself." It's quickly approaching the point where it's something she'll never come back from. She can't face that humiliation again, that utter rejection, that undeniable knowledge that Barney doesn't want or love her no matter what she does or says. She won't go through that pain again.
She can't.
She turns away as the tears fall onto her cheeks unchecked now. Because she can't do it again. She can't, and yet her heart belongs to Barney and all it wants to do is escape this car and go running to him.
"Well, a word in defense of making an ass of yourself," Ted says. "It's underrated."
Robin looks at him skeptically, pain and heartache coloring her every feature now. It doesn't seem there's anything underrated about the way she's been repeatedly rejected by Barney. It just genuinely sucks.
"Eight years ago I made an ass of myself chasing after you, and I made an ass of myself chasing after you a bunch of times since then. But I have no regrets."
Something in what he's saying makes sense. It strikes a chord deep within her and she recognizes that maybe he's right. Maybe it's not the chances you take that you regret; it's the chances you didn't. She certainly feels that way about that night last November. Maybe as hard as it is and as much as it hurts, you have to keep taking those chances if you're ever going to get the things that really matter.
"Because," Ted continues, "it led me to something that I wouldn't trade for the world. It led to you being my friend."
His words touch her poor bruised heart, making her lips turn up in a smile of gratitude as her eyes are flooded with a new batch of tears, this time good ones. He is being a great friend to her now by forcing her to face her feelings, by helping her to choose the right path this time. No matter what happens, it feels good knowing she has a friend like that. Taking a chance with Ted all those years ago was the wrong chance and she knew it, but taking it led her to this friendship – and in a way even to the friendships she has with Lily and Marshall. Taking a chance with Ted led her to Barney. Taking a chance, even one where you very well might make an ass of yourself, can still work out for the best. It can still be the right choice, the only choice, to make.
She may have missed those other chances and allowed her fear and denial to let both herself and Barney down, but not this time. Her life wouldn't be the same without Barney in it; she needs him in it. There's no point denying it. There is nothing like the two of them. Nothing in her life has ever been so beautiful. No one in the world has ever understood and accepted her as-is the way Barney has. He's always been there for her in the moments that count, so ready to make her feel better, so patient with her. Maybe he'll show that patience one more time, understand the mistakes she's made and forgive her, once he hears how she feels about him. Maybe he will give them another try. Yes, it's scary, but a gamble with this high of a pay-off is going to be scary. But it's also going to be worth it.
"So, as your friend and a leading expert in the field of making an ass of yourself," Ted declares, "I say to you from the heart, get the hell out of this car."
Robin smiles at him, already knowing he's right, already knowing what she's about to do, but feeling bad for Ted all the same – for abandoning him on the most important night of his career, for forcing him to worry about her at a time when all the focus and attention should be on him….and for those eight years of chasing after her when she never could be his to catch. "But Ted," she offers apologetically, rubbing the back of his hand and straitening his bowtie, "your big night." And in those words, in those actions filled with such compassion and empathy, is an apology for the pain he's felt because she's never been able to return the same feelings he expressed.
"It's just a building."
Robin offers Ted one last smile before turning away to glance up at the World Wide News building, at her heart waiting for her up on the rooftop. With a sigh at the difficult task before her, at the chance of rejection and heartbreak she's walking into, she nevertheless grabs her coat and gets out of the limo. Because there's also a chance at happiness and returned affections. There's a chance that Barney's been waiting for her 'I love you' as much as she's been waiting for his. And it's that chance that has her feet moving across the sidewalk and into the building.
Hurrying across the lobby and into the elevator, she thinks about all the fear that's kept her from telling Barney how she feels long before now. She could have told him so many times but she was always too afraid of taking that risk.
Sometimes you fall for someone you'd never expect. But that doesn't make it wrong.
That's what Barney told her a week ago, and he's right. For the past years she always connected that fear expressly and exclusively with Barney. And while it's true that his track record in many ways makes him a bad risk, that's just on the surface. It was one of her concerns, but not the only thing keeping her from him. The passionate, uncontainable, uncontrollable nature of her relationship with Barney frightens her. She's never experienced anything like it. It's terrifying to feel so much, so deeply, and to be so vulnerable to one person. That's why she tried to tell herself they were bad for each other and she was safer with some other man who didn't make her feel that way.
But now she realizes that's just love. If it wasn't Barney, if she had fallen for any other man – no matter how trustworthy, safe, and mundane he was – those same risks would still be there, that same depth of feeling, that same vulnerability. All this time she's been equating it specifically to Barney, to the two of them together, but it's not because they're bad or somehow dangerous together. It's not that two "messes" can't make it work. Barney is the only one who makes her feel that way because he's the only one she's ever been truly, deeply in love with.
And why has she been running from that? Why run from love, from a good thing, the thing she wants most? Some people spend their whole lives searching for that kind of love and can never find it, and it's been right here in her lap all this time and she's been throwing it away, running scared.
Maybe Kevin was right back when he was her therapist and he accused her of being afraid of happiness. She supposes it's because she's so rarely ever experienced real, true happiness in her life that when it came along it almost seemed too good to be true. She's been looking for the 'catch'; there had to be a catch in it somewhere. And of course there's also the fear of eventually losing that love and happiness, of somehow screwing it up and getting hurt in the way you never can if you're with someone where your heart isn't truly invested. People say it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, but that always seemed like such a lie. If she had perfect happiness and then she lost it, all she'd be left with is perfect sadness. To know what that kind of happiness feels like and then have it taken away is so hard. She knows; she'd lived that once already the first time around with Barney.
So she prescribed to the philosophy that she's better off not trying in case she failed, better off not knowing what she was missing in case she later lost it. How many times has she thought the odds were in her favor to land a certain job but she wouldn't let herself get her hopes up or be happy about it because she didn't want to have to face the pain and disappointment later when the inevitable fall came and all that hypothetical happiness was wrenched away? Had many times has she not even tried for the more prestigious sought-after job just because of that, because she didn't want to face that disappointment and loss when she didn't get it?
That's how she's been living in every aspect of her life, but she's finally figured out that is a stupid philosophy. Protecting herself from hurt in the long run by never allowing herself to feel at all, or get close to anyone, or risk grabbing happiness now because later on she might lose it means that all she's really doing is living a mediocre life, just existing.
Not only that, but she's not avoiding pain. She's hurting right now. She's been doing nothing but hurting for the past year. Every time she saw Barney with Nora, and then with Quinn, and now with Patrice. Every day she simply lives without him by her side. She's not avoiding pain at all; she's just been taking it now instead of later. But what if 'later' never comes? What if that eventual fall isn't inevitable after all? Then she's choosing mediocrity and loneliness and pain, she's running away from happiness, for nothing.
When she was just a teenager, the day she went in for that simple modeling gig that led to her Robin Sparkles career, she got nervous they wouldn't think she was pretty enough and she almost didn't go. But her mother made her, telling her one simple thing she's forgotten until this moment. Honey, you have to live like there's no midnight. And this, right now, is what her mom meant. She can't let fear of failure, and heartbreak, and all of that happiness turning into a pumpkin at midnight hold her back from going after what she wants and living life now. As hard and as scary as it is, she has to take chances to get the good stuff in life and simply trust that it's not going to all disappear overnight. Didn't her near chopper crash followed by fame and success prove that? Taking a chance on the WWN job to begin with proved that. Because of her fear she almost became a coin flip bimbo for the rest of her life.
And now because of her fear she may have lost Barney forever…..But maybe not.
She's spent the past four years learning she can't fight the way she feels for him – and she doesn't even want to anymore. It's time to stop running. She's finally ready to put it all on the line, to tell him everything, to throw herself at his feet, make a fool of herself again if that's what it takes for love, for him. She's ready to make this right. She's certainly going to try. She's ready to take a shot, take a chance, do everything in her power to get the two of them back together again.
There's not a second to waste either because it isn't too late yet but it's quickly approaching that time, and the thought of losing Barney is unconscionable. Who wants to waste seconds apart anyway when they could be spending them together? She's ready to take that leap with him. Right now.
At that very opportune moment, the elevator bings and comes to a stop. Stepping out, Robin pauses before the closed door leading onto the roof. She has no idea what to expect. It's possible that she's too late and the proposal already happened. But even if she is, she won't let that deter her this time from revealing her heart, from finally telling Barney how she feels. Or maybe she'll walk into a tender scene just like she described to Ted, catching the proposal midway. She steels herself for every possibility, but she opens that door.
What she finds catches her off-guard. Since the first time she saw it this rooftop has been her favorite place in the city, but it's never looked so beautiful, magical, like something straight out of a dream. There are little twinkling white lights like fairy's wings everywhere – strung up above her making a glowing roof overhead, covering all the shrubbery, along the railings on the edge of the building – and on every surface are more flickering lights, candles glowing in lanterns on the tables and on the floor, so that every square inch around her seems to be alive with light and wonder. And across the entire rooftop, blanketing every step she'll take, is a sea of red rose petals. It's the most romantic, breathtaking scene she's ever laid eyes on.
Her first thought is how Barney's outdone himself here and how much he really must love Patrice to make such an effort. But the man himself and Patrice are nowhere to be found. Could it be that she really is too late? They've already come and gone and left happily engaged while she was still in the limo wasting time debating with herself? Or is it possible that they just haven't arrived yet?
Then she sees a lone piece of paper sitting in the middle of the floor. Curious, she lets go of the door and, after glancing to her right just once more to be sure that no one's there, she walks over to the mysterious piece of paper with rose petals scattered all around it and even a few lying picturesquely atop it. It's too small to read yet, but she can make out one larger word on top….and it appears to be her name.
Did Barney leave some kind of note for her? Did he anticipate she'd try to come here and ruin things? Bending down, she picks it up, fascinated and at the same time terrified to read what it says.
The Robin.
Those are the words at the top of the page in what she instantly recognizes as his writing. By the time her eyes scan down to the bottom half it's already clicked in her mind that this looks like one of his Playbook plays. Seeing the series of steps listed out beneath the title confirms it for her. But why does this play have her name? She begins reading voraciously, desperate for answers.
Step 1. Admit to yourself that you still have feelings for this girl.
Does that mean….her? Barney's saying he has feelings for her but he had to admit them to himself? Her mind instantly goes back to Splitsville and the beautiful declaration of love that sounded so real and afterwards he tried to tell her was only pretend.
Hungry for more information, she reads on. Step 2. Choose the completely wrong moment to make a drunken move after hanging out at a strip club….
Here she knows he's talking about the night they went to Mouth Beach and he kissed her but she pushed him away. There's no mistaken that. It's what she reads next that sends her mind reeling.
….and get shot down on purpose.
That was intentional? Was he even drunk? Come to think of it, she was packing away the booze that night but she never really saw him getting a new glass. But why would he purposefully want her to reject him?
Step 3, she reads. Agree that you two don't work, locking the door on any future you could have together….
Wait, that wasn't real either? She drove herself crazy for weeks, hearing that speech repeating over and over in her mind: I'm done. And Barney had just made it all up?
….which will drive Robin nuts.
Oh my god. Cold realization smacks her in the face with those words. He's been manipulating her this entire time.
Step 4. Robin goes nuts.
What a triumph that must have been for him to make her lose control that way. She doesn't know which is more outrageous and embarrassing: that he saw it all coming and could so accurately anticipate exactly how she would react, or that while she was going crazy over him – throwing herself at him and running plays of her own – he knew exactly what she was doing and even wanted her to act that way.
He must have loved every minute of knowing he has her in the palm of his hand. A fresh wave of mortification hits her as she remembers how she stripped for him, blatantly offering him sex….and he planned the whole thing.
Step 5. Find the person who annoys Robin most in the world and ask for her help.
Oh. My. God. Does that mean what she thinks it means?
Reading the rest of the step confirms that it indeed does. Explain everything to Patrice and hope she agrees to help. Robin's heart is flooded with relief. It's not real. He's not proposing to Patrice. He doesn't love her. He was never even really with her.
But on the heels of that relief comes a rush of indignation. She's been falling apart, going through absolute agony thinking she's lost him, and it was all Barney's design. Everything that's happened over the past month and a half, none of it has been real. He's been playing her this entire time. Lying to her. Scheming and exploiting her feelings for him, manipulating them, tweaking them to his advantage.
She skims over, Step 6. Check with your doctor about possible broken ribs, not quite understanding. And then, Step 7. Pretend to be dating Patrice, which she's already figured out.
She hurries on to, Step 8. Wait until Robin inevitably breaks into your place to find The Playbook and show it to Patrice….
He knew about that too? That she'd be so desperate to keep Patrice away from him she'd actually break into his apartment? And he knew exactly what she'd be looking for too, exactly how she'd go about it.
He played her like a fiddle and she fell for it completely, just like one of his stupid bimbos she's spent years deriding.
….which you'll monitor via the hidden cameras you have in your apartment.
Great. And he watched it all too. Her crawling around in his closet, snooping though his apartment, unearthing his various hidden compartments in what she thought was such a clever manner but now she recognizes was one hundred percent orchestrated by him. It's humiliating. She danced like a puppet on a string for him.
Step 9. After Patrice "finds" The Playbook, have your first "big fight."
And of course that was all staged too, every last bit of it. Except….
Step 10. Prove your loyalty to Patrice by burning The Playbook, and actually burn it. You don't need it anymore.
In that moment when Barney burned The Playbook, renouncing that lifestyle and vowing to be a better, one-woman man – the kind of man who believes in commitment and monogamy like she always hoped he would – that's when she knew she could be with him forever if he'd only want her too. She's relieved to read that he still stands by his vow of giving up The Playbook. But that last part is slightly confusing. He claims not to need The Playbook anymore, but his 'relationship' with Patrice wasn't real. The whole thing was all just a play itself – a play to accomplish what she still isn't sure yet.
Step 11. Because your friends have no boundaries, they'll inevitably have an intervention for Robin, which you'll monitor via the hidden cameras you have in Marshall and Lily's apartment.
So Barney even saw that….and possibly heard all the others accusing her of being in love with him. She made this so easy for him, didn't she?
She reads over Step 12 and 13 together and finds herself further surprised. Tell only Ted about your plan to propose to Patrice. Wait and see if Ted tells Robin. And if he does, it means your best bro in the world has let go of Robin and has given you his blessing.
That means he drug Ted into this too, unknowingly from the sound of it. Barney wanted Ted to tell her about his supposed proposal plans tonight so he could get Ted's "blessing". But his blessing to do what?
Step 14. Robin arrives at her favorite spot in the city….
He remembered. He does know this is her favorite spot. That's when it sinks in that all of this is for her, this entire beautiful, romantic scene – the lights, the candles, the rose petals – it's all for her benefit. The thought makes her heart flutter in a way she really wishes it wouldn't.
….and finds the secret final page of The Playbook… the last play you'll ever run.
She blinks. He admits he's running a play on her then….but it's the last one he'll ever run. It shouldn't make a difference to her. She should feel so taken advantage of. But he swears it's his last play; she's his last play. And there's one more step to go. She really wants it – needs it – to read Tell Robin I love her because those words would go a long way toward making everything else okay.
Shaking, she reads the final step. Step 15. Robin realizes she's standing underneath mistletoe. At his words, she automatically looks up and – Sure enough, hanging from the end of a red ribbon, beneath a prettily tied bow, is a bouquet of mistletoe.
She just looks at it a moment, her mind and heart still all jumbled up from doing a complete 180 from everything she thought she knew. But it only takes half that moment to put the pieces together and, sadly, it all adds up. The deceit, the manipulation, "The Robin" play custom-tailored to fool her.…and the mistletoe. Of course the last step would be mistletoe, not a declaration of feelings like she'd hoped but an overture guaranteed to grant physical affection.
Her hopes fall and her features twist into distress, mirroring the hurt that's overtaking her heart. She wanted it to say I love you and instead it ended in a come-on. You're standing underneath mistletoe. Now come give Daddy a kiss.
All these weeks she's been falling apart at the seams coming to terms with the fact that she's overwhelmingly, irreversibly, forever utterly in love with him. And he's merely been running a play on her, just like the countless other women he wants to end up in his bed.
And maybe that's not fair. He swears he's done with that and this is the last play he'll ever run – and he did burn The Playbook so he must be serious about that. But still….a play. He was running a play on her. Lying to her, pretending, playing on her emotions, bending them to his will this entire time. She was about ready to pour her heart out to him, burst up on the rooftop, interrupt his proposal, and beg him to love her instead. Now, finding out the truth, she's expected to do what? Fall into his arms? Kiss him? Be flattered that he went to such lengths to sleep with her? Just be grateful for the chance to date him again? How can she possibly date him if he thinks of her as just a pawn to be maneuvered at his will, for his own gratification? How can she ever again believe a word that comes out of his mouth? She was ready to do anything for him, and he still can't take their relationship seriously.
Robin turns from the mistletoe then and finds Barney not surprisingly standing there watching her from across the rooftop, expecting her to run to him she supposes. The air comes rushing out of her lungs in a frustrated sigh filled with such disappointment with herself for falling for it, but more than anything disappointment in him for not thinking more of her than this, for not wanting more with her than this. "Seriously, Barney?" But he doesn't say a word in his own defense. He just keeps silently coming closer to her with a half smile on his lips that makes her frustration grow. "Even you, even someone as certifiably insane as you, must realize that this is too far." To play with her heart and play with her feelings this way just for a kiss, for a tumble in bed – even, best case scenario, for a chance to go out with her again – is inexcusable.
Though she hadn't seen him until now, Barney has been watching Robin the entire time, studying the rapt expression on her face as she found the play and read it over. He's able to take her anger now in stride because he knew she would react this way. He always knew that explanations and declarations of feelings would have to come later. There's only one thing that will move her now and it's waiting on the other side of that paper.
Amazingly, Barney won't answer her charge and still keeps looking at her that same way. It incenses Robin. Doesn't he get it? Doesn't he understand the magnitude of what he's done? "You lied to me, manipulated me for weeks. Did – did you really think I could kiss you after that?"
Barney's lip twitches slightly because he knows what Robin thinks. He knows she's misunderstood his intentions – and in her place, admittedly, it would be hard not to. She thinks he doesn't take this seriously, but he's never taken anything more seriously in his life than the two of them and what he wants with her now.
"Did you really think I could trust you after that?" Robin continues, outraged. She came up here fully prepared to grovel and plead for a second chance, and he's just looking for kisses and sex and….what? Another free and easy, physically based non-relationship? She doesn't even know what exactly it is that he wants from her, probably because he's done nothing but lie to her.
But all Barney does is merely smile at her, and it aggravates and hurts her so. Of all the things she'd hoped for coming up to this roof – that he would return her love; that he would want a future with her too, one they could start together from now on – this is what she gets instead. A play. A silly little manipulative play to convince her to welcome him into her bed again. "This," she says looking down at "The Robin" condemningly, "this is proof of why we don't work – why we'll never work."
Barney can go on smiling in the face of her anger because she's wrong on each and every charge. And because he knows what's coming – and he knows that she doesn't see it or expect it in the least. This isn't frivolity to him, nor is it a ploy for sex. It's exactly the opposite, and she'll soon see that. There's no more running, no more hiding. This is him, standing firm on the way he feels about her. An all-in, ultimate vow to her.
After everything she's thrown at him, rather than disgrace or shame, Barney just keeps smiling, still reacting so flippantly, and it breaks Robin's heart. She wanted sincerity from him, meaningfulness from him. She wanted him to take their relationship seriously, to care about the two of them being together more than anything else. That's all she's ever wanted from him – that pledge, that assurance. But he still doesn't get it and he never will. She'll always just be a game to him, an amusement, a fun playmate whose company he enjoys. It makes her worth dating, definitely makes her worth sleeping with, but he can't even come close to grasping what she feels for him and what she wants from him in return. He'll never understand that or want that too. They'll never be on the same page and this proves it once and for all.
"So thank you," she tells him, but her voice starts to break from the tears that are building again, from the sting in her heart that refuses to go away, that never will again. "You've set me free. Because….how could I ever be with a man who thinks that this….trick, this enormous lie, could ever make me want to date him again?" She waits for some kind of explanation, some response, some slight justification from him. She deserves that much.
Date him again. The words make Barney's smile widen. That's not what this is. This is so much more than that. He's not looking for a quick lay, friends with benefits, or even just to date her again. He wants to make her his wife. This is forever. That's how he loves her. That's what he wants more than anything in this world. And that's what changes everything – that gravity, that level of unwavering devotion. He understands that now, and it's exactly what he's offering. She just doesn't realize it yet. That's why he says three simple words, and not the ones one might expect. Those words are said too often and with too much insincerity. She'd never believe them from him right now. No, she needs to hear three different words from him now – and four more to come. "Turn it over."
Robin can feel the tears threatening. Another moment more and she'll be crying in front of him, and that's the last thing she wants. But that's really all he has to say for himself? Just to direct her back to the play that made her so upset with him in the first place? He still can't even take her anger seriously.
She rolls her eyes in exasperation but, figuring she has nothing left to lose at this point, she does as he asks. On the back of the page, there's one last line she hadn't noticed until now. Sighing, she brings the paper closer….and her heart skips at what she reads. Step 16: Hope she says yes. 'Yes'? Yes to what?
Lowering the page, what Robin sees now makes her heart stop completely for a second in time, makes her world halt on its axis. Nothing will ever be the same. Because Barney Stinson is down on one knee with a diamond ring in his hand.
"Robin Scherbatsky," he begins, and she's still in utter shock, her eyes wide and heart racing now, her breath coming in gasps.
"Will you marry me?" Barney asks with such hopefulness but also with fear and nervous anxiety resounding in his voice. Everything hinges on her answer. She holds his heart, his world, in the palm of her hand. His entire future depends on what she says next.
Robin's mind is still trying to compute it as a reality. Barney just asked me to marry him. Barney just asked me to marry him. And in his voice was all that sincerity, all that emotion she'd been hoping for.
He did lie to her for weeks. He did manipulate her. But this is why. This is what he wanted at the end. This is why he burned his Playbook. This is why he doesn't need it anymore. This is why "The Robin" is the last play he'll ever run. Because he's in love with her. And he wants to MARRY her.
So many different moments with him in their long and varied history go dancing before Robin's mind: the night they really met, when she teased him for the very first time and he declared he wasn't quite sure if he liked her; their first night truly broing out, with laser tag, cigars, and scotch galore; all the private moments over the next two years as their friendship grew stronger, the two of them growing closer as she shared things with him she'd never shared with anyone else but with Barney it felt okay and she never knew – was too afraid to examine – why; their first kiss; their first time together and all the moments after when she wanted to kiss him again, wanted to take him back to her bed again because it did happen and neither one of them could deny it, but she kept fighting, fighting, fighting…and losing; their next kiss in that hospital room, taking that leap together; a thousand different moments over their secret summer, including the first time they truly made love; the morning they made it official and the night they called it a day, and too many moments to count in the years after where she longed for him, where she loved him and thought it was too late – the time Ted made her feel bad about herself but Barney convinced her that she was the most amazing, strong, independent woman and that was awesome; their night at the museum together, unable to resist touching the forbidden, which was a metaphor for their relationship if she'd ever heard one; their almost-kiss in the hurricane; the cab ride where they finally admitted to having loved each other once; their dance at Punchy's wedding; the Halloween she dressed up for him; their last time making love that he swore meant something to him and now she believes it; the night he led her to his storage locker and the box full of memories of them he couldn't bear to part with either; his declaration at Splitsville that apparently was real after all. So many cherished moments with him, each one unforgettable. Their love has always been unforgettable.
Barney isn't perfect. He never will be. But neither is she. She isn't asking for perfection, and she knows he's never expected it in return – which is a good thing since she's so far from perfect herself. The truth is she likes Barney imperfect. Ever since she's known him, Barney has been the master manipulator, the almost always inappropriate "bad boy", and she loves him that way. That part of him always has appealed to her even if sometimes she's scolded herself for it – but maybe that's just part of her imperfection, being attracted to the roguishness in him. She's dated plenty of good, upstanding men, guys that would never dream of lying to her, or manipulating her feelings, or running a play on her – guys like the Teds and Kevins of the world – but they were never The One. They could never truly do it for her the way that Barney does, the way he can make her toes curl with just a single look or unseemly suggestion or highly improper double entendre.
Barney is a rascal, but he's her rascal. She loves him, and now she knows he loves her. He has changed and become a better man in the important ways. And he's choosing her for life. That's all that matters, this moment right now. This is the man she loves, who she's always loved, and he loves her too. He's committing. He's finally forever committing. And that's everything. Everything she's ever dreamed of.
Robin blinks, blinks at the realization that all the things in life she never even dared hope for are now within her grasp. He feels it too; he wants it too. And all she has to do is say one word to make it happen. She gazes down at Barney, whose eyes are locked on hers so earnestly, clearly in love with her as hopelessly and irretrievably as he said, and her mouth forms the smile her heart has already permanently stretched into. "Yes."
Her 'yes' in that moment is the sweetest thing Barney has ever heard. His heart swells and a smile of pure love lights his face. He gets to live now. He gets to be happy. He gets to have Robin as his wife. He knows there's no way he's done anything even close to deserving this. But, undeserving as he is, she loves him. She said yes. She wants to marry him too. And that has him up on his feet, hurrying towards her matching, dazzling smile.
Barney rushes to Robin, wraps his arms around her, and then his mouth is pressed to hers and all thought gives way to simply feeling as she reaches for him with both hands, letting "The Robin" fall through her fingers and onto the rooftop below in her urgency to touch him, to hold what she thought she'd lost but now she'll have for always.
He feels her hands on him, her soft lips against his – filled with so much love – and it's heaven here on earth. He wants to go on kissing her endlessly, but right now he needs to get the Whittaker family ring on her finger. It's the final piece that makes her his future wife.
Robin senses Barney pulling back and she leans into him, wanting the kiss to continue. It's so good, so much. It's him; it's them. She's aching to enfold him in her arms and be held in his forever. Her heart is demanding there are infinite more emotions left to be poured out into another kiss and then another, for all time. Even as he lets go of her, she keeps reaching for him until finally she opens her eyes and realizes what he's doing. Then she lets her left hand slide down his chest so he can take it in his. She watches entranced as he slips his engagement ring onto her finger, making it official. She's unable to tear her eyes away, still hardly able to believe it's all real.
But Barney, he can't stop looking at Robin's face, captivated, watching all the emotions play across her features as she stares in wonder at the ring now on her finger that means she's going to be his wife, they're going to be married and build a life together filled with awesomeness and love.
When Robin looks up at Barney again their eyes meet. Hers are filled with such amazement and awe, and his with a pure happiness he sees reflecting back at him. Then he can't stand it any longer; he has to be kissing her again. And he can now. He can kiss her forever. The realization seems to hit her at the same time, and her joy bubbles into laughter. He laughs too, pulling her back into his arms, encircling her in his embrace as they laugh against each other's mouths. They can barely stop smiling long enough to kiss but they manage it somehow just as gentle flakes of snow begin to fall adding to the magic of the moment.
Beneath the Christmas mistletoe, Barney's lips connect with Robin's softly, tenderly, as he runs his hand lovingly over her back. She lets her purse fall to the rooftop so she can wrap both arms around his neck to hold him closer, and his hand in turn slips down to her waist as he gently rocks her while they continue kissing. And in these kisses there's a world of love and comfort, of reward and recompense and unadulterated happiness they've both waited years for - that was waiting for them all along. They just had to get to this moment.
Every memory repeats, every step I take retreats.
Every journey always brings me back to you.
After all the stops and starts, we keep coming back to these two hearts.
And after all that we've been through, it all comes down to me and you.
I guess it's meant to be forever you and me after all.
What starts off soft and gentle rarely ever stays that way long with the two of them, especially when they haven't been together in a year, and only the once then. With such intensity of feeling, it's impossible not to escalate further and their kisses soon deepen. Barney slips his hands under Robin's coat to grasp her waist as she clutches onto his shoulder, their bodies pressing together intimately, her hips curving to his. Her coat bunches up as he skims his arm to the small of her back, but neither one of them notices or cares. Soon he moves his free hand up into her hair, supporting her neck and holding her mouth tightly to his for their increasingly passionate kissing.
But a second later, Barney slowly ends the kiss. He hadn't meant to start this yet, not when he still has something so important to say. Keeping his arms around her, pulling back just far enough to look into her eyes, he softly tells her, "I love you."
"Good," Robin breathes, her voice heavy with emotion. "Because I love you too."
Such bliss washes over him finally hearing her say it, and he kisses her again. He can't help it; it's uncontainable. When he feels moisture on his skin from hers, he draws back and is surprised to see that she's crying. "It's okay," he promises, cupping her face. "Baby, it's okay. I'm here now. I'm never going away."
She nods, overwhelmed with emotion and absolute happiness – a condition she once thought was beyond her. "I'm sorry," she laughs at herself as he wipes away her stray tears. "I just really love you."
"And I really love you." He moves his arm down to her back and cradles her to him as he kisses her some more.
Several moments later, Robin breaks the kiss, softly humming a sigh. Smiling at him – she's pretty sure she'll never be not smiling for weeks to come – she slips out of Barney's arms to look around the rooftop at the beautiful scene he's created. "I can't believe you did all this for me."
"Of course I did. There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you."
"But….all of this…This," she says, bending to pick up "The Robin" from where it landed about a foot away from them, "this means you and Patrice never – "
Barney shakes his head 'no'. "It was always you. It's only been you."
"And you remembered this is my favorite spot in the city." She shakes her head in wonder. "No one else knows that. I only told you once, back when I first got the job at World Wide News. That was two years ago."
"And I had lunch up here with you almost every day last summer," he reminds her, walking over to the patio table where she's gently placing "The Robin" for safekeeping. "And I missed it every day I couldn't be with you here this summer."
"Come here," Robin beckons, pulling him in for a light kiss before crossing over to the railing. "Come look at the city with me."
There are many things still left to talk about but they're both too lost in a haze of love to bother with the details right now. Barney's arms encircle Robin's waist from behind and he draws her back against him, his joined hands resting low against her abdomen as they look out at the beauty of this giant city where somehow they managed to find each other.
"It's hard to believe this is real," she marvels, leaning her left arm against the railing, gazing over at the new GNB building where she could have been right now. She's so thankful the night had something else in store for her.
Barney pulls her closer, adjusting their bodies to the new positioning. "We've gone through a lot to get to this moment."
Robin thinks back on a few of those things, some of them better left forgotten, but it doesn't matter now because it's all behind them. "We've waited years."
"We're not waiting anymore."
She turns her head to smile at him and he smiles back, bending to kiss her lips. But he loves her so much he can't resist going back for more, sweetly kissing her nose too. With her eyes still closed, she cuddles back against him, pressing her temple to his check, feeling surrounded by him, so loved and so content. Resting his cheekbone against her forehead he leans into her, closing his eyes too, and it's a moment of complete and utter peace. When Robin opens her eyes again from the corner of them she sees Barney's mouth stretch into a wide smile that matches her own as the snow continues to fall on them while he silently holds her, safe and warm and serene.
They never stopped loving each other, not even once. And through all the almosts and what could have beens, every time they tried to move on, their hearts wouldn't let them. Through everything they've gone through – both together and apart – to get here, the love they feel for each other has never disappeared. Instead it's evolved and grown stronger with time into an enduring, unbreakable force that's woven them together inseparably. That same love inexorably drawing them back, always back to each other, because this is home. Forever, this is home.
It's a wonderful feeling this new serenity, but it can only last so long before Robin cranes her neck back seeking another kiss. But the awkwardness of the angle throws them off and this time they miss completely. Barney's mouth lands just south of hers, which causes them both to laugh and Robin to turn completely in his arms.
With her back now pressed against the railing, she places a short, proper kiss to his lips. "It's perfect up here," she observes. "We could stay here all night just watching the snow fall on the city."
He nods in agreement. "We could,"
"Or we could go someplace more private and really celebrate."
"That one," Barney deadpans. "Let's do that one."
After quickly going around the rooftop blowing out the various lanterns, they gather their things, first "The Robin" because she wants to keep it, and then her forgotten purse – which, in a fit of sentimentality, she tucks a handful of rose petals into to commemorate the moment.
"Ready?" Barney asks, holding his hand out to her, and it's a loaded question. Not just is she ready to leave the roof and this beautiful scene, but is she ready to walk through that door with him and start a new life together beginning tonight.
But there's not even a moment of hesitation in her heart. "Ready," Robin declares, slipping her hand into his.
Once they're in the elevator making the descent down to the ground floor, he turns to her. "Now that we're being honest, now that we have all our cards on the table…."
"Mm-hmm," she nods, prepared to answer whatever question might come her way.
"….Let's talk about you showing up at my door half naked, you little minx," he says, snaking his arms around her waist and pulling her to him. "Do you know how hard it was – pun definitely intended – for me to turn you down that night?"
"It didn't seem very hard."
"That's because you didn't see me after. Patrice had to physically hold me back from running after you."
"She did not," Robin laughs.
"For a second or two, I swear," Barney insists, his laughter mingling with her. "But in the end I loved you enough to say 'no' until you were ready to say 'yes' to us."
"I'm ready now."
Never missing a cue to lean in for a kiss, Barney does just that but gets upstaged by the opening of the elevator doors as they arrive on the main floor.
Ranjit is standing on the other side waiting, and his face lights up seeing them in each other's arms. "Told you you're in love with Barney," he brags to Robin.
"You were right, Ranjit."
Ranjit leads them through the WWN lobby and out to the waiting limo, opening the door for them. Barney ushers Robin ahead of him and when she sets her left hand on the doorframe, Ranjit immediately catches the light dancing on the diamond. "Is that an engagement ring?" he asks, fairly bursting with excitement.
They both grin ridiculously and exchange a silent look, determining it's alright to spill their news to Ranjit. "Yes," Barney confirms, "but we haven't told anyone yet."
"I'm the first to know," Ranjit states in reverence, the pride evident in his tone. "Congratulations!"
Once they've climbed into the limo and Ranjit is ready at the wheel, Robin requests of him, "But if you wouldn't say anything, please. It's kind of our secret for tonight."
Barney inches closer to her in the warmth of the backseat. "We love secrets."
"Where to?" Ranjit asks.
Robin looks to Barney. "Your place is closer."
"To my apartment, Ranjit," he says, never taking his eyes off Robin. The way she's looking at him speaks of all the wonders still to come. Tonight is going to be one spectacular night. "And put the partition up."
Ranjit laughs knowingly as he presses the button, and then the two of them are in perfect privacy – at least visual privacy, since Robin knows the partition is certainly not soundproof. They start to kiss but then.…
"You know, Ranjit will blab," Robin says against Barney's lips.
"Yep," he absently manages between kisses. And then, "I guess I should text Ted and let him know what happened."
Robin pulls away reluctantly, setting her hand to his chest. "It's better that he hears it from one of us." Barney pulls out his phone and she reaches into her purse doing the same thing. "I'll text Lily."
Once that task is done, he wraps his arm around her again, nuzzling his face against her neck. Her left hand is in his free one and he can see she's staring in amazement down at the ring.
When he squeezes her closer to his side, she speaks her thought aloud, "You love me. I mean, you really, really do love me." Her voice reads like she still can't quite believe it. "If all you wanted was sex, you could have had it, but you didn't. You wanted more than that. You want to marry me."
It's still difficult for Barney to grasp that Robin didn't understand the way he felt about her, the depth of his love. It seems so obvious to him that he has to keep reminding himself this is an issue for her. "Yes, I want to marry you. I want everything with you. A marriage, a life together. I want it all, with you."
She kisses him soundly then takes to playing with the knot of his tie. "I can't believe this whole thing – this past month and half – was all pretend."
"It was me trying to win you back."
"You never really lost me, Barney. You couldn't. I found that out the hard way," she admits. She has to know, though, why this play? Why did he feel that all this elaborate subterfuge was necessary? "But why didn't you just tell me how you felt that night at Splitsville? That was real, wasn't it? That wasn't part of the play?"
"That was very real. I meant every word, but you weren't ready to hear them," he explains and Robin knows he's right. "If I would have told you then, you would have let me kiss you. You maybe even would have gone home with me. But, in the morning, you would have run away. I didn't want either of us running anymore. I knew I had to show you that I'd changed, that you didn't have to be afraid to take a chance on me, on us. I'm in this thing as much as a person can be. I know what I want, and it's you – forever. You weren't ready to believe that yet or to even admit that's what you wanted yourself."
He has a very good point but she's still trying to work it all out in her mind, what was real and what wasn't. "But the night you kissed me, that was pretend?"
"The timing was all wrong, but nothing about that kiss was pretend," Barney stresses. "For the first time in a year I was kissing you, and it felt like coming home."
She reaches over and strokes his face, has to be touching him somehow. "But you did it on purpose? You knew I would….misunderstand, I would push you away. Why did you want that? Was it really just so you could reject me and make me go crazy wanting you?"
"You had to get to that same place that I did. Getting you to turn me down gave me the chance to lock the door on us, to tell you that we just didn't work and I was done trying to be with you. I had that moment last year, when you walked into MacLaren's with Kevin."
Robin knew they would have to get to this topic eventually, but it raises all sorts of warning flags and she really doesn't want to ruin this bubble of happiness they're in. "Barney – "
"No, it's okay. I'm not looking for an explanation," he assures her. "I just mean that when you refused to leave him and come talk about us, that was that moment for me, that we're-never-going-to-be-together moment. The only reason I wrote Step Four as 'Robin goes nuts' is because that's what happened to me."
Robin looks at him intently, her brow furrowed with guilt and pain at his pain. They've both done their fair share of hurting each other, intentionally or not, but that is one night she was always deeply regret.
"'Barney goes nuts'; that's been the whole past year. Everything since then," he tells her, finally coming clean. "Not just Brover and the nannies, but everything – Quinn, all of it. It was just months of me losing it over you and frantically, desperately trying to pick up the pieces. Until I came rushing into that restaurant, begging you to break up with Nick. Listening over the phone and hearing you weakening, I – I just knew. That was the moment I knew I couldn't go on this way. I couldn't settle for anything less than you, no matter what it took to get you back." He smiles over at her, his fingers playing with hers. "Until I saw the way you looked at me out on the street afterwards and I knew there was hope after all. But I also knew we were never going to be together and you were always going to keep running until you came to that place of knowing too. Until I could show you that I've changed in all the ways that matter, that you are the only one I want, and I'm serious about our future."
"You were right. About everything – every way I would react, the fact that I would have run away in the beginning. Barney," Robin says, tightening her grip on his hand and turning in the seat to fully face him because he needs to understand this part, "loving you, wanting you, it all came so easy. Every time I was around you, eventually whenever I even thought about you, it was always just….there. I didn't have to try or force it. In fact I tried my very hardest to make it go away. But it was always still there, that spark between us, that connection, that way I loved you like nobody else. And so I wanted it to be you. I wanted it to be us. But I thought it couldn't be; that it shouldn't be. We tried and we failed, and I thought that meant something. I thought that made us somehow wrong, somehow destined to only just fail again. And we had our chance – really our chances – since then and we never took any of them. Then when we slept together, when we cheated, it seemed to only prove how wrong we were together, what a mess we were. You even said so that next night. And I just…."
She hesitates because no excuse is good enough. He said he isn't looking for an explanation, still he deserves one. But all she can offer him is the truth. "I was scared, Barney. I was terrified of getting hurt again. So I ran away and I stayed with Kevin. I made a mistake not choosing you that night. I think I always knew it deep down, and I really knew it as soon as I broke up with Kevin. But there was nothing I could do. You'd moved on. You met Quinn and I….I really hated that."
It feels shockingly good to get that off her chest, and she notices Barney absorbing the information with keen interest, so she continues telling him everything. "Watching that, watching you live with her, it was torture. But I had to be happy for you. I thought that we'd missed whatever chance we might have had – that I missed it for us – and now you loved someone else. It hurt like hell, but I told myself it was okay. It was okay that it wasn't me because you were happy, and that was how it was supposed to be. But, honestly, I just felt like jumping in front of a bus. And that's when I bumped into Nick again and I decided to grab onto this good timing for once and make it work. I was just trying to get by, to rebuild, to….to survive."
"And then you got engaged, you of all people," Robin says with a trace of humorless laughter, and Barney is surprised because he can still hear the pain thick in her voice. "I understood how huge that was. And it killed me – never believe for a moment that it didn't kill me. It felt like someone was ripping my heart out. But there you were, stepping into marriage and making a life for yourself, a good life. I wanted that for you, even if it couldn't be with me, because I always wanted to believe you had that in you to want something more. I was happy that you were finally happy even though it did break my heart seeing you with her." She puts her other hand on top of his, holding it enveloped between the two of hers. "But I still loved you. I've always loved you. I can't make it stop, and I don't want to anymore. I'm never gonna try to again."
"Wow." Barney shakes his head at all the time they've wasted. "I had no idea you felt that way. I – I guess I thought maybe at first it bothered you a little, when I gave you the key to the storage room, but you never said anything."
"I went there and saw all the stuff you kept of us. I cried," she admits quietly. "I still have the key in my nightstand."
"I may have been back there during the summer a time or two myself," he divulges, confession for confession. "Robin, listen, the day I got engaged to Quinn, when I said it was our last chance to run away together I meant it. I wanted you to stop me, to tell me not to marry her, to say the word – just one word – and I would have run off with you to Canada or anyplace else you wanted to start that new life together. It was always you. No one else has even come close to touching my heart. How could they? You already own it."
Barney gathers her back against the seat again, his arm around her shoulders protectively. "Before you, my life was crazy and wild. It was a bachelor's dream, and I told myself that's all I wanted. But there was still this….hollow feeling, this aimlessness. Then I met you, and there was an amazing chemistry between us instantly that I really wanted to explore, but you were off-limits. And then I got to know you, and the closer we got the more you showed me how empty my life actually was. The way I felt when I was with you was such a contrast. I knew you were what had been missing from my life. I just fell so completely in love with you, Robin. From the very start, just being around you made me happy. There was never any doubt that you were what my heart, what every part of me wanted. But I just thought – I mean I'm pretty sure I'm not good enough for you. I thought you'd figured that out. I know you deserve someone better."
"There is no one better," Robin swears, taking his hand in hers again.
"Yeah, that's true," he teases and she smiles. "But I thought maybe you just wanted me from time to time, but you didn't love me. Or not enough. Not as much as you loved Kevin, or Ted, or Nick."
"Wait, Ted?" Robin says, sitting bolt upright. "You knew about that?"
"You kissed him. You thought about getting back together with him. At least that's the way Ted tells it. That's why I had to work those steps into the play."
Robin sighs heavily. She's still embarrassed about her actions that morning, what they might have made Ted falsely believe….and what they apparently made Barney think too. "Nothing happened. It was a very short blip on the radar. I wasn't thinking straight. I stupidly chose Kevin and he left me too, which means I threw away my chance with you for nothing. It was all just a reaction to losing you and everything I felt for you. I panicked." She puts her hand to his face, her thumb softly stroking his jaw. "But running away from you the way I did, it was never because you're not good enough or that you don't matter to me. It's because you're the only one who does matter. Nothing about the way I feel for you made sense, and given your track record with women you seemed like a dangerous person to love that way, that much. So I spent years trying to fight it, and bury it, and make it go away. But I couldn't control it and that terrified me. Kevin and Ted and Nick weren't better choices. They were safer choices. I could walk away and it wouldn't devastate my life. They didn't have the power over me that you do so they couldn't ever hurt me the way that you can."
It's beyond wonderful to hear her say all that, to finally have proof straight from her mouth that there wasn't anything wrong with him and that it wasn't simply because she never loved him enough. But Barney can also hear her remorse. He can see how truly awful she feels for some of the choices she'd made over the past year and he has to set her heart at ease. "I understand that, I do. Robin, I've been afraid too," he acknowledges. "We've both made mistakes."
"I came up here to you now, though," Robin offers, "even thinking you were about to propose to another woman. Because I almost lost you once; I couldn't let it happen again. As scary as it was taking that chance, not being with you – never being with you – is impossible. It's unthinkable. You once said I'm the least needy woman you've ever known, that I don't need anything, but that's not true. I need you. I love you more than I've ever loved anything. More than I even knew was possible. Yes, that scares me, but I'm not running anymore. Because when you touch me, when you kiss me – god, when you just smile at me – it's like breathing, it's like living, it's everything. In that moment, everything just feels right. I feel….whole. And I didn't want to live without that feeling. I don't think I could." She brings her right hand down to her engagement ring, twirling it with her thumb. "And then seeing you down on one knee asking me to marry you…..To know that you want me, you love me, and you're committing to us – that s all I've ever wanted but I never thought I could actually have."
"Well, you can. We both can. We're going to have it," Barney vows, cupping her face with both hands. "This love, Robin, I've never known anything like it. It took me awhile to wrap my mind around it, to be brave enough to recognize it for what it was, but being with you is all I ever wanted. Dating you the first time made me realize I wanted something more out of life. Meeting my dad put a name to it: marriage, commitment, forever. He convinced me that it wasn't too late for someone like me, just like it hadn't been too late for him. And the moment he told me that, the only one I wanted it with was you. I even told him I already met the right woman. Marrying you is all I've wanted for the past two years. There's never been a time when I wasn't in love with you. There never will be a time. You're it for me. My first choice. My always choice. Everything."
Neither of them is quite sure who leans in first. It's more like a joint movement towards each other, and then they're kissing again and that's all that matters. With feelings now out there and hearts laid bare it feels better than ever before to lose themselves in each other. It starts to get heated, hearts are pounding and breathing is hitched and they can both feel every second of the past year since they were together this way. But then the car jolts to a stop, Ranjit is opening the door, and they're forced to break apart.
Climbing out of the limo a second time and making her way through another building's lobby feels infinitely better to Robin on this go round, especially with Barney holding her hand in his. Waiting for the elevator, he pulls her close, kissing her cheek and then her lips softly.
"We don't have to talk about all of this now," she tells him, still holding "The Robin" in one hand but burrowing her free hand beneath his beige coat to grasp his tie. "All that matters is that you love me and I love you – and we're getting married. We have the rest of our lives to sort out the other stuff. Tonight is for much better things."
"Making up for lost time," he agrees, bending to set his forehead against her forehead, his mouth teasingly close to hers. But the elevator opens then and they have no choice but to step inside, Barney hurrying to push the proper floor.
"We have a lot to make up for…..And we should start right now," Robin adds the moment the doors close. She kisses him passionately and it's an incredible feeling. Getting to be kissed by him again is still new and yet so familiar; he's right, it is like coming home. She sighs into the kiss as his tongue slips inside her mouth to stroke hers, teasing, seducing, making her want him even more.
Barney makes a small gruff sound, something close to a moan, and then he's pressing her back against the elevator wall for leverage, his hands tight on her hips. But only moments later Robin can feel him rein it in, switching back to gentle tenderness again. She knows what he's doing. He doesn't want her to feel like it's all sexual. Drawing her mouth away from his, she smiles. "Barney, you don't have to hold back with me. Not anymore. Neither of us does."
It's on the tip of his tongue to deny it, but she's right that they don't have to do that anymore. "I just don't want it to seem like all I can think about is taking you to bed," he softly allows. "I'm trying to be sensitive."
"That's sweet." She slips her hand beneath his suit coat now to touch him with only his thin dress shirt in between her hand and his skin. "But," she adds, her hand drifting lower down his chest, "has it never occurred to you that I might be preoccupied thinking about taking you to bed? This is still us, after all."
Grinning, Barney kisses Robin, letting his hips press into hers this time, using them to nudge her back against the wall again. She can feel how much he wants her and it makes up for all the times he turned down her plays before.
The doors open suddenly and they momentarily scandalize Barney's new neighbor who was waiting to take the elevator downstairs, but it's something Mrs. Watukowski is going to have to get used because there's going to be an awful lot of making out in elevators in their future. But her disapproving stares do manage to pull them a discreet distance apart while Barney unlocks his door and lets them inside the apartment.
He turns on the light, locking the door behind them, while Robin walks further into the living room, stopping beside the couch. "The last time I was here I was hiding in a closet…."
"I know. I saw. You looked cute hiding there in my suits."
"The last time I was here you burned The Playbook."
"I don't need it anymore," he maintains, coming to stand beside her. "Just this page." He takes "The Robin" from her, dropping a kiss quick on her lips as he passes by to set it safely on the kitchen counter.
"I love your tree," she observes. It's the first time she's really had a chance to take it in. It was hard to notice such details before when she was embroiled in breaking and entering. The red and green ties in lieu of garland are a nice touch. "It's very you."
"I wanted to show you how domestic and homey I can be," Barney informs her cheekily, taking off his coat and laying it across the back of the couch.
"Well, it's our kind of domestic. Not quite traditional but somehow it works."
Barney smiles at her. "Do you want a drink?" he asks.
She shakes her head. "No."
"Something to eat? I cheated you out of that grand spread at Ted's opening."
"No."
His smile burns with purpose now. "Then what do you want, Robin?"
She slowly approaches him, well aware she has his rapt attention on her every move. The air is positively crackling between them with years' worth of tension to be resolved. The sex tonight is going to be amazing. He always ranked we-just-got-engaged sex up there in the top three, only this time it's for real – and it's them.
Stopping in front of him, just shy of their bodies touching, Robin whispers, "The same thing you do."
Then he's reaching for her and they're kissing with the kind of visceral, overwhelming passion they've only ever felt for each other. To say that Barney has thought about this night a lot during the course of planning "The Robin" is a serious understatement. His principal wish for the evening is to take things slowly and really indulge themselves this time, but he wants her desperately enough that he can't help the heated brush of his hand down her curves as they equally propel one another toward the bedroom. Their way is somewhat slow and stunted since neither one will stop kissing each other long enough to look where they're going, but when they reach his partially closed bedroom door Barney finally breaks away from her long enough for Robin to notice the soft glow of candlelight emanating from the room.
He pushes the door open all the way and there are candles blanketing every dresser and nightstand giving the room the same magical quality the rooftop had. "Just in case you said 'yes'," he explains. "I have a candle guy."
She laughs, walking into the bedroom first, watching him as he sheds his suit jacket and sets it across the desk. Then he comes back over to her side and slowly strips her of her coat too, depositing it atop his.
It's the first time he's seen Robin tonight without the coat covering her. She wasn't lying about the dress; it does show side boob. She looks incredible in it and his eyes roam over her figure with naked desire. "You're beautiful. Breathtaking."
Barney walks over to stand behind her, allowing one hand to grasp her waist, gently pulling her back against him. The other hand flutters a path down her bare arm to pick up her left hand. Holding it up in his, he circles his thumb around her engagement ring. "You wearing this ring makes it complete." His breath blows out warm and enticing across her neck and he can already hear her breathing start to pick up. "Perfectly, utterly beautiful," he whispers kissing her cheek, the line of her jaw. "Hot and sexy too." He lets her hand drop back down to her side, using both of his now to feel her from her waist to her hips down to her thighs and back up again, burning a teasing trail along her sides stopping just short of grazing her breasts. Brushing her hair aside, he presses his mouth to her neck, laying a path of soft, moist kisses before opening his mouth over her skin and applying enough suction to make her melt even further in his arms, pressing back against him wanting more.
Robin has one hand on his wrist, gripping him as he methodically touches her, the other at the back of his neck, her fingers curling into his hair. "Barney? Do you remember…." But his tongue is doing something fabulous in the sweet spot where her neck meets her shoulder and it makes her train of thought momentarily blur. "…do you remember the last time we were together?"
He knows she means sex and he brings his mouth up to her ear, biting at the lobe. "I remember every time we were together."
"Good answer," she purrs. Before she can formulate a further response his mouth is back down biting at her neck and he's moving the strap of her dress off her shoulder to bare more skin to his lips.
"I'm glad you like it," he hums, his voice deep and thick with lust. He moves his mouth to kiss along the baby soft skin of her shoulder now. "It also happens to be the truth." Then he turns her around in his arms, dipping his head to kiss just beneath her collarbone and across to the hollow of her throat where he can feel her pulse racing. From her throat he makes his way down to the swell of her breast, allowing himself to both kiss and caress her there now, first one than across to the other following the deep V of her neckline.
A faint sound of wanting escapes her. "I can't…" Robin gasps, her fingers tightening on him. "I can't remember what I was saying…."
"The last time we were together," Barney prompts, smiling. He flips the one remaining strap of her dress down, giving her other shoulder the same treatment.
"The last time was….good," she says, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and holding him firmly to her. "It was really good. The way we – "
"The way we looked into each other's eyes when we first started," he finishes for her. "How I watched the pleasure on your face, seeing the way we make love – the power of it – in ever tiny change in the color and brightness of your eyes."
"Yes," she evocatively sighs, not sure if she's ever wanted him more. Because he remembers that. He was feeling it too. That night meant something profound to him as well as her. "It made it feel special."
"I can do that, Robin," he earnestly promises. "I can make you feel special."
"You already have."
He gives her dress the last little nudge it needs to slide down the rest of the way, but as he does he watches her eyes, sees it all again – the desire, the connection, the love – in their tinniest flicker as her dress slips down to her waist. Then his eyes go traveling in the way he wouldn't allow them to before when she showed up nearly naked at his door. He glides his hands along her bare sides nudging the dress down over her hips and it falls to the floor, pooling at her feet…..And he takes in the sight of all her glorious nudity. "No underwear," he says as if it almost pains him. His eyes are hot on her, taking in every last inch.
"I didn't want a pantyline," Robin explains in a breathy whisper because the way he's looking at her is both too much and not enough and she really just needs him to be touching her again.
"No," Barney shakes his head, "you do not have one." He reaches out, running his hand low over her abdomen where her underwear would be, his pinky just a millimeter shy of indecent. Robin shivers and her knees nearly buckle. He smiles and in an instant has her scooped up in his arms, laying her down on the bed as he hovers over her kissing her soundly, drawing on her bottom lip in a way that makes her whimper and strain up towards him.
But Robin wants to get more clothes off him. So far it's unfairly one-sided. Dreaming up all those plays has made her want nothing more than to get her hands on him too. She sits up, forcing him back onto the foot of the bed where she straddles him. He accepts the new position with ease, continuing to kiss her as she takes off his tie and unbuttons his shirt.
Once she gets him completely shirtless she presses herself to him chest-to-chest and it feels so good, but she wants to touch him first. She runs her hands all over his hard chest, down and up and back again feeling his muscles quiver beneath her palms. Then she bends to kiss his pecs, working her mouth over him. His breath whistles through his teeth as her tongue laps over his nipple and she stops, looking up at him. "Good?"
"Fantastic." She shifts over him, begins rocking slightly against him as her fingers take over what her tongue was doing, now using her mouth to suck at his neck, her teeth scraping across his skin, and Barney groans. "It's just been a while."
"I know. Too long," she emphasizes, using her knees at his hips to nudge herself still closer, increasing the contact, as she goes on kissing him.
"Not just for us," he clarifies, breathless at what she's doing, "but at all." That has her full attention and she eyes him curiously. "Going on two months."
"Barney Stinson celibate?" There's a twinkle in her eye of teasing but even more so of love. "We weren't even together."
"But I was trying to be," he tells her in complete seriousness. "You are the only one I want to be with." He skims his hands up her bare skin from knee to neck, lingering over the good places. "And it's been too long without you."
"Not anymore." Robin slides down his thighs, working at his belt, getting it undone in a flash and going for his zipper. She watches his eyes intently as she plays there, taking her time about it. When the task is complete and he's grunting, helpless in her hands, she shifts back. "That's the mistake you always made. You thought being single and using The Playbook was the way to get sex." With her legs still resting on either side of his hips, she leans back on her arms like an offering in the candlelight. "Now that we're together again, you're going to be getting so much sex you won't even know what to do with yourself."
Barney's eyes burn hot and hungry. "Oh, I'll know what to do." Then he's up on his feet, shedding his pants and boxers, throwing them to the ground careless of the potential damage to a beloved suit. A moment later he's on her skin-to-skin, and that's almost enough for Robin on its own. "Do you know how long I've wanted you?" he asks her.
She responds to him eagerly, hooking her leg around his ready to receive him, but he pulls back, determined that as lovely as the last time was it's not going to be like that now, hot and frenzied and quick. "I've waited five weeks thinking about this moment. We're gonna take our time." He wants this first time together again to mean something, to be an expression of love. And he wants to make her feel special, so it's going to start with him adoring and loving her first.
He kisses her deeply, lets his mouth mingle hotly with hers. Then he kisses from her neck down, lavishing attention on her body in all the places that make her sigh. His soft, skilled tongue against her heat, both relieving and inciting the ache, draws a breathy moan from her. He's always been so good at this. He blows all her other lovers out of the water. That's the last conscious thought she has before her fingers curl into the sheets in helpless pleasure.
The next thing Robin's aware of is Barney kissing back up her body, softly stroking her skin as she catches her breath, coming down from the high. Still trembling, she opens her eyes and breathes his name, her eyes aglow as she smiles at him softly. He smiles back in that warm, melting way he only smiles for her that always makes her heart swoop and her world tip on end. Then his mouth is on hers, soft and enticing, his kisses and knowing touches making her desperate for him again, as ready for him as he clearly is for her. He shifts his position so he's lying on top of her and she opens to him, arching her hips up towards him, her stomach pressing into his encouragingly. But before he takes her, he twines their fingers against the pillows, feeling the engagement ring she now wears that promises they'll be together always. When her legs are wrapped around him, he touches his mouth to hers in a hot hungry kiss that's colored with a distinct edge of tenderness. Only then, to mirroring gasps, does he press inside her so that they're one, joined in every way possible.
Lying in bed afterwards wrapped snugly in each other's arms and the warmth of the afterglow, Robin skims her hand over Barney's chest as he lightly strokes her back. It's a moment of such calm happiness and ease just to be able to lie here this way after all the years apart, after it seemed like they'd never find their way back together.
Her fingers still tracing patterns on his skin, Robin is the first to eventually break the contented silence. "Barney, where do we go from here?"
He shifts so they're lying side by side facing each other. "Oh, I was thinking about going down here…" he answers, bending his mouth to her breast.
"I'm serious," she asserts, but she glides her hand along his arm and shoulder up to his neck, softly stroking his skin in encouragement anyway.
His tongue smooths over her one more time before he obediently stops kissing her, though he's unable to resist nuzzling across her neck before looking up at her. "Okay. Where do we go from here? We get married. That's what that rock on your finger means," he says, threading his fingers through hers, loving the feeling of the ring against his skin whenever he touches her hand. It's a reminder that this is real. She really said yes. He gets to keep her forever. "That is what you want, isn't you? You haven't changed your mind?"
"No. I want to marry you. It's just…this all happened so fast. It takes a little getting used to." She wraps her right arm around his shoulder, her fingers playing in his hair, and he closes his eyes and sighs. "I spent years – literally years, Barney – restraining, suppressing, holding back the way I feel for you. It's just so strange to not have to do that anymore, to be able to openly want you and….and love you," she smiles, the words still new to her tongue.
"Hmm, I like the sound of that, you loving and wanting me….and you being open," Barney winks suggestively, nestling his leg between hers. She opens to him easily, allowing the intimate contact, resting her ankle on his leg, her toes teasing his calf. He's quickly getting distracted by things other than talking, but he has to know. "Is that going to be a problem for you, this new openness?"
"Probably," Robin admits. "I've never been good with emotions. I've always lived with my guard up. It was sort of a necessity with the way I grew up." He nods, nudging closer to her, but says nothing, just letting her get it all out. "Sometimes it's still hard to share myself and what I'm feeling. It's hard for me to leave myself vulnerable that way, especially when the other person means so much."
"I get that. I think I get that like no one else. But, you know, it's okay to be vulnerable with me," Barney tells her, letting go of her hand to softly cup her neck, his thumb tilting her chin up, holding her gaze on his. "Because I love you, and I would never do anything to purposefully hurt you. You know that, right?"
"I do." She leans in and kisses him, lets her mouth linger a moment on his, and it feels like he's living a glimpse of his near future. "But it's never been easy for you either. We both haven't been good at talking to each other about things. Real things."
"I know. But I'm gonna try. I promise you, I'll try."
"What are we going to do different this time, Barney?" Robin asks, and he can tell from the small crinkle between her eyebrows that the question is of real concern to her. "I don't want us to mess this up again."
"Well, I think we already are different. We've learned a lot about what it means to be in a relationship and, more importantly, how to love each other in a way that's good for both of us."
"Which means loving each other selflessly."
"And putting each other's happiness first," Barney agrees. "If you're happy, I'm happy. Even if that means making sacrifices."
Other than 'I love you' that may have been the sexiest thing Robin's ever heard him say. She snuggles closer to him, pressing herself completely to him now and his hand instinctively settles at her waist to maintain this new contact. "But we have to know when to sacrifice and when not to. We were sacrificing so much for the other's happiness that we were both in love with each either and neither one of us knew it."
Barney smiles. "Yeah, I guess we're gonna have to speak up about the important stuff."
"Yes," Robin nods. "If there's an issue we have to tell each other. We have to talk about it, not walk out of the room, or get naked, or throw things."
"I don't know. I always liked your getting naked solution." Barney slips his hand under the sheet to drift over her bare skin. "I'm kidding," he laughs when she narrows her eyes at him. "We will have to talk," he concedes, playfully grimacing over the world 'talk'. "Because I'm not messing this up. I'm not losing you again….And, I know this doesn't sound like me, but I'm thinking that'll also mean telling each other how we feel more often. Not just about the problems but how we feel about each other. I – I still can't believe you didn't know."
"I didn't. And there's something else I've always wondered about," Robin begins in a small voice that lets him instantly know this is something that's hard for her to say. "When we were breaking up, you said we cancelled each other out. That really stayed with me. Every time I thought about you and me again I just thought, I don't want to cancel him out."
Barney brushes his fingers over her hair soothingly. "I was only searching for a way to describe it, Robin. We didn't cancel each other out, not really." He contemplates it a moment. "I think we just stopped being us."
"I think we did too," she quietly agrees. "I was so afraid you didn't really love me. In the back of my mind I was always afraid you were going to cheat on me, always petrified you were going to want your old life back again. That's why I hated the strip clubs and the porn. I thought if you kept being Awesome Barney, Awesome Barney wouldn't stay with me. So I tried to make you into Boyfriend Barney – with the antiquing, and farmer's markets, and couples' brunches, and staying home and watching TV – because Boyfriend Barney felt safer, like maybe you wouldn't be so tempted. But I hated Boyfriend Barney."
"I know," he wryly concurs. "You used to yell at me all the time."
She stokes her hand over his back in apology, feeling him shiver just slightly at her touch. "I missed Awesome Barney. That was my Barney. You weren't you anymore, but it was my own fault. I wanted Awesome Barney back. I wanted you to be that Barney, but only for me. And I didn't think you would, or could, do that. We managed it in the summer, yes, but it seemed so much scarier once we defined things. It seemed like it was only a matter of time before Awesome Barney started sharing that awesome with every other woman in town. I didn't think I was enough to keep you."
"Robin, I never would have cheated on you. I loved you then and I love you now. I was immature. I wasn't ready to handle it the way I should have. But you were – and are – more than enough to keep me. Where would I go? No woman could ever compare to you." He shrugs as if only a fool could think otherwise.
Robin skates her hands over his arms to grasp his shoulders, using the leverage to wriggle her body against his, sighing at the immediate rush of skin-on-skin and friction and pleasure, every wonderful feeling his nearness incites in her. She's felt Barney wanting her again ever since she first pressed herself to him after his 'your happiness makes me happy' comment that turned her on so before. It's a credit to how much he has changed, to how seriously he is taking their relationship now, for him to even have had this conversation with her at all rather than just saying 'Or…or' and rolling on top of her again.
"Robin Scherbatsky is the best." He cocks his head to the side contemplatively. "And I should know, cause I've already had most of the rest and – "
She puts her finger over his mouth, stopping him. "That's one too many," she dryly informs him.
"No, I'm just saying, I've been with a lot of women, but none of them could ever come close to comparing to you. When you've had the best, the rest don't measure up so – "
"Just shut up and kiss me," she laughs, cutting him off.
His eyes fall down to her mouth. "Gladly." She melts into the kiss but he breaks away after only a few short moments. "I love you, Robin," he tells her. "That's what I'm saying."
She smiles, her fingers pushing up into his hair. "I love you too," she imparts. Because he's right; they do need to tell each other more often. And alone together this way, it doesn't feel scary at all. It just feels good. It feels right. "Mmm," she breathes, just a whisper of a sigh against his lips as he leans in to kiss her again. "That's not so hard."
"Yeah, it is," Barney boasts invitingly, brushing against her intimately to prove his point.
Robin makes a little humming sound of approval in the back of her throat. "Let's do something about that," she murmurs, hooking her knee over his hip.
He glides his hand up her thigh, his fingers sinking into her behind, guiding her hips to get Little Barney where they both need him to be. "Oh, we're gonna be 'doing something' all night long," he promises as his mouth finds hers.
AN: I wanted to be really thorough with this one so I included every incarnation of the proposal scene: what actually aired in 8.12, the slightly different still photo that has them missing the kiss, and the rehearsal footage that shows them kissing with his hands under her coat.