17. Frustration (Garbage Island)
Ted keeps furtively looking over his shoulder and it's kind of annoying.
"Hey, will you stop doing that?" Robin snaps at him after about the seventh time. "Seriously, the Captain's not going to come looking for you."
"Right," Ted says. "But even if he does, you'll kick his ass, right?"
Robin shakes her head. "Seriously, what is it with the guys in my life lately? You've all turned into complete wusses. Marshall's becoming a big old hippie. Barney can't even be around a girl he likes without regressing into childhood. And you…?"
Scowling, Ted gets off the couch and grumbles his way over to the kitchen.
"Sorry, didn't catch that!" Robin says with a fixed grin. But really, she's just frustrated. She's frustrated that everybody is moving on but her. And she's certainly frustrated that Barney thought it was eighteen weeks since she'd had sex with anybody other than him. Really? That's just insulting. What about Wang Guy- Josh?
But most of all she's frustrated that she can no longer take her frustrations out on Barney, which is why she heads out of the apartment and down out on to the street for some fresh air and maybe to sneak a smoke away from Ted's judgemental gaze. That's where she bumps into Wendy the waitress, who's staring into space, smiling and starry-eyed.
"So who is he?" Robin asks, and jeez, she sounds just like Lily with her love-radar. Sadly, Wendy doesn't even try to lie.
"His name is Meeker, and he's wonderful," she coos.
It's sad that those words make Robin's heart sink a little, because everybody is in that first flush of a relationship right now, that gorgeous getting-to-know-you phase. Ted's with Zoey. Wendy's with Meeker. Hell, even Barney's out with Nora.
"Don't worry, Robin. You'll find someone soon," Wendy says kindly, one hand resting on Robin's shoulder.
Robin shrugs it off and offers Wendy a cigarette. "I don't want to find someone. I just want to get my freak on."
Wendy laughs, like Robin's making a joke. But all Robin can do is grimace.
18. Heart Monitor (Change of Heart)
Scooby happens for a lot of reasons. Initially, she likes him because he's Canadian, and sweet, and funny. And young! God, how awesome does it feel to be with somebody so young again, so un-cynical, so unspoiled? He's everything her friends and her professional colleagues aren't. But that fondness soon turns into annoyance and she's almost at the point of dumping him when he gets hit with a glancing blow from a station wagon. And Robin could never resist a hot guy with bruises.
But jeez, he's terrible at sex. He makes love the same way he does everything else – like a dog. Now the others have pointed it out to her, she can't unsee it.
Oh, he's enthusiastic enough, around the winces and yelps where she inadvertently touches some sprained muscle. But when he rolls her over on to her front and slobbers a trail of kisses/licks down her spine, Robin can't help but collapse in a fit of giggles.
Doggy style? Really? No matter how desperate she is for sex, she just can't go through with it. And he's concussed enough, or just plain dumb enough, not to protest.
So she takes him home, puts him to bed and heads back to the bar for a scotch or three. She just wants to kick back with her nightcap when Barney marches in. Stupid Barney and his stupid lies.
Poor Nora.
Barney avoids her at first. Maybe it's guilt? He knows how much faith Robin's put into him to the point of practically forcing him and Nora together in the first place. But the longer she sits there and he doesn't make any effort to come over and talk with her, the more irritated she gets.
He's so screwed up, and she's so angry, and that's a bad combination. So she knocks back her drink and she gets to her feet, smoothing down her blouse. On the way out she pauses as she passes him. She leans into him and he doesn't turn, but she can see his knuckles whiten where he's gripping his glass of scotch.
Quietly, under her breath, she says, "Barney, unless you can come to terms with your past and open up to someone, you'll never get a girl to love you".
His shoulders tense and she feels a stab of guilt. But damn it, somebody needs to tell him these things. Somebody needs to help him. They can't all keep enabling him or he'll end up alone and miserable.
And even so, even though Robin absolutely believes she's right, she doesn't find it easy to get to sleep that night.
19. Connection (Legendaddy)
Robin's never been great at being there for people in need. She's never been good at handling tears and vulnerability. She never knows what to do. When do you hug somebody? When do you just offer a kind word? She doesn't even have the vocabulary. She's not like Ted or Lily.
Her heart breaks for Barney and all she can do is just stands there like a useless lump.
And the irony is, she knows exactly how Barney feels. Robin can empathise perfectly with what he's going through, more so than any of the others even, and yet she's powerless to help him. She can see it all, there in his eyes. She can see everything she's been through with her own Dad, reflected there. She knows it all so well, that sense of loss and anger that never, ever really goes away.
When Barney first found out about Jerry, back at that GNB shindig at the Natural History Museum, Robin could have helped him out. And at Marshall's Dad's funeral, when she'd been the only one who knew how much Barney was hurting, then she'd had a second chance to get it right. But the only way Robin knows how to help anybody is with physical comfort – that classic Scherbatsky/Stinson play. And right now, that option is unthinkable.
Barney just broke up with Nora. Robin's still angry with him about that.
But she feels kind of mixed up inside – frustrated and unhappy and a little worried in a way she can't seem to shake. When they get back from White Plains, Ted heads out to see Zoey and Robin takes a shower.
The great thing about Ted's shower is the high water pressure. It pounds at your skin, almost scourging it, making you feel amazingly clean. Robin tilts her face into the spray and then steps back, grabbing the hose and unhooking it from the wall. There's a twist-control on the top that intensifies the spray even further.
With a wry smile, she guides it between her legs.
Her go-to fantasy in this situation - the thing she thinks about as the water gushes and pulses and makes her grit her teeth – is this guy she met a while back. He was just some guy - a marine biologist, incredible in the sack, sweet, intelligent, good to her. She'd screwed up the relationship in just a few weeks, but he'd left her with some great memories. And really, that's what she needs right now, jerking off in the shower. Something uncomplicated and sensual and without baggage.
Eyes squeezed shut, she pictures him, his lively tongue between her legs, his fingers squeezing her thighs, pushing her legs apart. Oh yeah, that's the stuff. It's perfect, he's perfect, his tongue rasps across her clit, draging down and up, faster and faster and around, and dipping inside her core. Within minutes she's coming, hard and fast and noisily. She almost slips and loses her footing and her heart thuds, adrenalin courses through her veins and warms her right through.
She opens her eyes, and in the flash between memory and reality she almost sees something else, a different fantasy, a different man.
…blue eyes, a quirky, knowing smile.
And suddenly Robin's on the verge of tears and she has no idea why.
20. Support (Exploding meatball sub)
"What is wrong with you?" Robin says with a mixture of disgust and exasperation.
"What do you mean?" Barney shoots right back. "That was an awesome plan. Oh, you think I should have gone with the poison?"
Robin just stares at him.
He stares back.
Eventually it's him that breaks first. "Look, it's the truth." He clumsily crosses his heart. "I swear."
"Yes," she says patiently. "I can well imagine you'd do something that lame to deflect from the fact that you don't want your friend to leave GNB and you'll miss him."
Barney opens and closes his mouth a few times but doesn't say anything.
Robin decides to try a different approach. "You keep telling us about this shrink you see once a week. Can't you talk to him at least? I mean, when you're are actually throwing stuff around, doesn't that tell you something?"
His expression twists and he looks away, like he can't meet her eyes, like there's something else there that she's not getting. For the first time in a very long time Robin gets a chill down her spine.
"I'm not trying to back you into a corner here," she says, trying to reassure him. "I'm just worried about you. You're drinking way too much. And really - you're hiring hookers? You're paying for it now?" She shakes her head. "Seriously, what do you need? Anything, just ask, man!"
He opens his mouth to say something, raising a finger.
"Not sex," she stops him.
"Narks," he grumbles.
"Anything but that," Robin leans back in the booth and tries to smile. "You don't want to talk about your Dad? I get that. But you can't go through life trying to blow people up with subs and trashing your office."
She tries to read him, but he's scowling again.
"I care about you," she says.
Somehow that makes it worse. She wishes she had that telepathy thing that Lily, Marshall and Ted seem to have. She wishes she knew what was going on in his head.
"You're never going to tell me, are you? Or even admit to it." Robin is surprised to realize that she's said those words out loud.
"It's just hard," he says, in his real-Barney voice.
"I know." She reaches across the table again and laces her fingers through his. "And I'm here if you need me."
He gives her a half-hearted smile and shrugs.
"Whenever you're ready," Robin continues, then she chuckles bitterly. "I guess you can talk to Lily."
He frowns and narrows his eyes. "Don't say that."
"Oh come on!" Robin huffs. "You always talk to Lily. I've seen you talk to Lily. Why can't you talk to me?"
He gives her a weak smile. "Lily makes me talk. She's a terror for such a tiny chick."
"So talk to her," Robin tries not to sound petulant.
"I can't," he says. "Not about this. I'm okay now. It'll be okay, Robin, honestly."
Robin feels something shimmer in the air, something intangible. Is this a third chance, maybe? Another opportunity to help him, to push him, to make him talk like Lily does.
She feels it slip through her fingers.
"Okay," she says, giving in.
And he orders another drink.