His breath ruffled her hair. His palm was pressed against her navel, fingers splayed across her belly, protecting her, claiming her. Ted didn't make a sound as he slept. Ted was at peace in a way that she somehow couldn't ever be.

Robin lay awake in his arms and all she could think about was how things had got so messed up with Barney. She'd never seen him properly angry before. Oh she's seen plenty of him playing-angry, posturing-angry or full of tightly-wound fury at the world. But she'd never seen him angry like this, not even when Ted had broken their friendship. She'd never seen him so full of hate.

She didn't even know what she'd done to deserve this. She didn't even know what had happened. Well, she knew what had happened but perhaps not why. And now she was left with this sickening feeling of guilt that wouldn't go away. That evening, Ted had been working late again and instead of a relaxing evening at the bar with her friends, Robin had been left alone for hours, holed up in the apartment with a bottle (or two) of wine and had found herself missing Barney.

Which was just… unfair.

After all, it had been alcohol that had got them into this position in the first place. She should resent him for messing her up like this. But still she missed him.

*--*--*

He'd never have done anything without her say-so. Not that he'd ever needed a woman's permission before he hit on her but this was Robin and she was his friend. Friend, not Bro, not really. No matter what twisty-turny emotions he was feeling inside, he'd never have led her on.

But she'd given him that tight-lipped smile and there was something hard and unhappy around her eyes and he'd reached out to her. Why did he always reach out to her?

Why did it always feel so right when she was nestled in the crook of his arm, her tears dampening his shoulder, the sweet scent of her breath curling around them both, confusing his senses in a heady miasma of scotch and sadness?

He'd told himself that he wasn't going to lose control this time.

But she was there, full of nostalgia and longing and lingering embarrassment from Marshall's terrible karaoke version of "Let's go to the mall", and she'd needed someone (just not necessarily Barney) to lean on. She hadn't broken contact all the way back to his place, not even when getting into the cab. Her fingers had curled around his bicep, pulling him in after her; she was always pulling him in and he was always circling her, faster and faster until he was dashed into small pieces on the sharp rocks of her defences.

The soft skin of her throat tasted sweet, like the frosted cupcakes Ted used to force on him when he dated that baker-chick. He tried to identify her perfume, just to distract himself from how she was making him feel because if he gave into that, the sensation was dizzying. He pulled at her blouse (clumsy) his hands circling her waist and pushing her, gently but firmly, onto his sofa; a sofa that was worn and shaped with the backs of so many, many other women. He tried to focus on that, too, the parade of conquests his apartment had seen, and not the fact that simply running his tongue in a long swathe across the swell of her breast was making him hard enough to lose it in seconds.

She was tugging at his belt, pulling at it, fingers fumbling his fly as he tried not to grind himself against them when his brain sort-of shorted out and between desperate gasps he blurted: "I love you…"

He felt her freeze.

Oh no.

*--*--*

Why couldn't men just let it be about sex? Clean, simple and easy. Fun. Why did they have to bring emotion into it?

Of course, it was easy to be swept up in it. There was nothing sweeter than real, heart-felt "I love you" sex. Robin had that sex with Ted and she'd meant it. When they'd broken up, it had burned her far more deeply that she'd ever realised. What if Ted was the only man she would ever be capable of loving?

So when Barney had told her he loved her, Robin had allowed herself to get carried away in the moment.

Well… until the moment had stretched out and become a bunch of whole days…

*--*--*

When Barney lost the very last piece of himself he started haunting other bars across the island, places where no-one knew him. He dated a bunch of girls - properly dated them. The relationships would last a few weeks and he'd never, ever walk out of any of them straight after sex. It was always the girls who broke it off, always for different reasons and yet always for the same reason. It was always about him. He guessed that it took that long for them to see that he was a hollow man.

Marshall was the one who sat him down, staging a one-man intervention. His friend had been full of confusion and questions, firing them again and again, mercilessly. But Barney was uncompromising, refusing to explain himself. There was no more "himself" left to explain.

One day, at work, Ted and Lily came to visit Marshall and when Barney saw them all together he felt something like pain in his guts.

He took a vicodin and shredded his iPhone because he didn't know what was worse - getting accusing text messages from them or getting no messages at all.

*--*--*

Was it wrong to fantasise about another man when you made love with your boyfriend? Ted would kiss her, the weight of his body pinning her down, surrounding her with a fog of choking emotion and she'd long to do something really dirty, really filty, really fun. She wished she was free.

Barney had said "I love you" to so many women, how could it suddenly be true with her?

Barney was her friend. Of course he "loved" her.

Oh, Robin had told herself so many lies.

She and Ted had just connected, just fitted together again. That's all it was! It seemed so simple, so obvoious. They were both alone and lonely and they had each other. Why not get together again? For one night, it had felt like old times. It had wiped away the confusion of those heady few days with Barney.

And then when Ted had announced they were back together, at their table at McLaren's, she'd seen Barney's smile freeze on his face and that expression had become a rictus grin throughout the night. Marshall and Lily had expressed some concern but Ted had talked them round. Robin was the girl he'd always wanted, after all.

Barney hadn't said anything at all. Ted assumed that his friend was angry with him because of the whole bro/wingman thing - what fun was it for a single guy to hang out with two couples?

But there was one moment, that night - the first thing Barney had said to her on the subject. The last thing Barney had ever said to her on the subject.

"But I love you," He'd said, so angrily, so accusingly, as if she'd taken a knife to his heart.

And since then she'd watched his love turn to hate.