A/N: Did I mention that you guys are awesome? Because if I didn't, I will...you guys are the definition of awesome! Thanks for all the reviews, favourites and alerts, makes me feel proud :P

Couple of things to mention, I'm going to take a poll to see what people would like the outcome of this story to be. I think I put up a poll in my profile, but if not, leave it in a review, please and thank you.

Do you want Barney to live?

Yes

No

Yes, but it should be a close call

Secondly, I'm ALWAYS open to suggestions on this story. I get great ones from CatherineJosephineMarie007 and I really think every bit of input helps this story. So if you want to PM me, I will facebook add you (with your consent of course) or PM message with you. Thanks!

"The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on. If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. You can change the way people live their lives. That's the only lasting thing you can create" – Chuck Palahniuk

Chapter 8: The Worst Day Since Yesterday

It had been almost twenty minutes, Robin estimated. Discreetly bending her head and checking her watch, she confirmed. Twenty-three minutes. Twenty-three minutes she and Barney had been sitting here in silence.

She could feel Barney's gaze on her, and she knew he wanted her to say something, anything. To yell, to hit, to rant, cry, any damn thing but just sitting there. Every single minute that passed in silence the atmosphere grew a bit tenser, and Robin knew Barney hated it as much as she. They had never had trouble finding something to talk about, throughout their entire relationship conversation had flowed because they were just too alike to not have something to talk about.

Robin wanted to say something; she wanted to look at him. She wanted to yell at him, ask him what he was thinking, how could he keep this from her, what was wrong with him, but she couldn't. She had no idea what she was feeling. So many emotions swirled in her that she could not even begin to make sense of them.

"Are you...going to say something?" Barney's timid voice asked.

Robin shook her head.

Twenty-six minutes.

"I was protecting you."

That got Robin's attention. Suddenly all her joints snapped back into motion, and the mess of emotions swirling in her mind made room at the back for just one: anger. Pure fury coursed through Robin, and she was loathe to control it.

"Protecting me?" Robin spat incredulously. "And did your twisted brain never arrive on the possibility that this was a rather large thing to hide, and maybe I'd have to hear it from a mortician someday?"

"No," Barney replied shamefully. His guilt did nothing to assuage Robin's anger, though.

"How could you do this, Barney? What the hell were you thinking? Did you think I'd never find out? How did you even bribe your doctors to..."

On and on she went, and Barney couldn't take his eyes off her. Even righteously pissed off, she was gorgeous. Especially pissed off, she was gorgeous. She was pissed, no doubt, and she had a perfect right to be, but Barney just didn't know how to tell her that every lie, every omission, every time he snuck out was for her, was for them. Eventually, the anger would fall away and the pity and sadness would take its place. Anger he could easily stomach, well deserved as it was. Pity, that was one he never wanted to see again.

"I was protecting us. I tried to...there were so many times I wanted to tell you, Robin. But..." Barney twisted the thin blanket in his fingers. Voicing emotions wasn't either of their strong points. Perfect couple? Maybe being too perfect for each other destroyed what made the other individually unique, but with Robin it was like having an extension of himself.

"What, you just couldn't find the time?" Her voice was mocking and sarcastic.

Thirty-two minutes.

"I was protecting you. I didn't want you to stay here...out of pity." He cracked a weak smile. "Not when you should be out awesoming."

Protecting her? Who the hell did he think he was to think he had any control over what she should or shouldn't know? Their whole relationship was built on the fact that they knew who the other was and wanted to be together in spite of it. Barney had violated that, and he thought he could come out of this as the good guy? He had made her feel like a blind idiot and she was the one who was supposed to be sorry?

Robin's emotions had, by this point, flown beyond her control. She was full out yelling now, and Robin couldn't calm herself nearly enough for one rational thought to cross her mind.

"It's pretty fucking clear how much you care, Barney! You had fucking cancer, and there was never a good time to slip into the conversation "hey, just so you know, I've got this disease that's probably going to make me waste away and die. No big deal though." Cut the crap, Barney. You did this for you. You did this so that it wouldn't be on you if you brought the group down. Couple of sad faces is more than the great Barney Stinson could take, huh?"

Barney looked like she had slapped him. Suddenly, the guilt drained from his face and Robin knew she'd gone too far.

"You think I liked hiding it? You think it was fun? You really want to know what it was like, want to hear everything? Okay, Robin. Have it your way. Every week, I come here and they jab a needle in my arm that makes me throw up everything I eat, and I mean everything. Remember that time we went to play laser tag and I went on a solo mission to smite that seven-year-old? I puked behind that wall. And the time we went to that incredibly pretentious party Ted dragged us to? I hurled in the punch bowl. Want to know about the pain? It's all the time, everywhere. Sometimes I go into my room, bury my head in a pillow and scream it out as loud as I can."

Thirty-four minutes

Tears were rolling down Robin's cheeks. The images of everything Barney was describing flashed through her mind, one after the other. She shut her eyes tightly but they only got clearer. Barney rambled on and on, the images tortured her, and Robin couldn't think under the weight of her own guilt. She clamped her hands tightly over her ears, resisting the urge to sing like a six-year old. Her head whipped back and forth.

Stop it stop it stop it stopstopstopstop...

And then there was silence. The world went quiet and Robin was finally able to catch her breath when she felt a hand slip into hers. Her eyes slowly opened, and then she was falling onto the bed and into him, and Barney's arms were around her.

Robin sank into him, curling in as far as she could get, burying her head in his shoulder. He still smelled like cologne and new suits, she realized. Her Barney was still in there. And somehow, with that thought still in mind, Robin felt all the anger sucked from her body. Anger was easy, but exhausting. Anger did nothing but hurt. And anger wasn't really what she was feeling, Robin realized. Confusion and betrayal, yes. But strangely, she was not angry. As much as she hated to admit it, she knew why Barney had not told her. It was just like him, completely thriving on attention but never wanting anything serious to penetrate the persona of strength and invulnerability he put up.

Robin Scherbatsky knew who she was. She was a commitment-phobe. She ran. Babies, marriage, there were reasons that scared her. They were just reasons to tie yourself down to the same thing day after day. Why would anyone feel such an immense sense of loyalty they would put themselves through that? She didn't understand. Or, she corrected herself, she hadn't understood. Now, with Barney's arms wrapped tightly around her, it all seems so simple. Love was a weird thing. It was the glue that held people together, and the wrench that tore them apart.

"You are such an unbelievable fucking idiot."

His arms tightened around her in response.

"Me too, Robin. Love you too."

Forty-five minutes