2015.

Robin had loved Ted. Really, she had. He was so sweet, so patient with her. Most of the time things had been so easy, effortless — like lying back in a warm bath, not having to worry or work or think. Plus, he was always up for brunch. Brunch is awesome.

But he'd also been so needy. Needing her to feel the same as he did, about food and television and feelings and weekend outings. Needing her to ask about his day and his job and his stuff, all the time, even when it when she already knew from hanging out with him. Needing her attention and time, needing to be with her. If she had a bad day, he needed to make her feel better, cheer her up, give constructive advice when all she wanted to do was vent. Needed to take care of her, needed her to need him, and maybe that was how relationships were supposed to work, but after a while she was sick of it, sick of trying to match his level of commitment and love and sick of feeling like a crappy girlfriend for wanting to lie on the couch and watch Heads or Tails instead.

She'd loved him. She really had. But it was exhausting.

It's seeing Ted with Tracy that reminds her of it all, seeing them flit around one another, Tracy tracking him through the room when Ted gets up to get everyone more drinks. They always seem to be on the same wave-length, the same emotional level — Tracy a little sharper, keeping Ted grounded; Ted a little more dreamy, keeping Tracy optimistic. They're a perfect match, anyone can see that. Robin watches Tracy call Ted over to take the baby; watches Ted beam as he does. She feels happy for them. She really does.

Selfishly, it alleviates her own guilt — like if she'd been a better girlfriend back in the day, Ted wouldn't have been lonely and desperate for so long. Like if she had just appreciated him, he could have been happy years before. She knows that doesn't make much sense, that she would have hated popping out a kid and moving up to White Plains, but Ted's still one of her best friends and seeing him quietly unhappy never made her feel great, especially knowing she, and her inability to be a good girlfriend, was partially the cause. She's glad he's found Tracy — glad to finally be off that hook.

"Dude, you're totally zoning out," Barney says all at once, and she starts because he's right, turns to look at her husband, sitting in the chair across the coffee table from hers. Her husband. It's been almost two years and sometimes that still startles her, that word.

"What?" she says. "No way. What are we all talking about?" Her face grows hot and the others all laugh at her.

"So anyway, Spokane," Ted chuckles. He's talking about a skyscraper he designed there, and now she remembers — the skyscraper people want to hire him for another job in Washington, the money is good but leaving Tracy alone with the baby is clearly bad. Barney is coming down heavily on Ted needs to stay in New York forever, and keeps giving Robin pointed looks like right?

And that's why she zoned out — not because she's on team break up the gang forever, but because she remembers Ted first pitching the building, when they were dating, how proud of herself she'd been for being supportive and caring and how things had been great between them in the wake of that, until she'd gotten tired of it again.

After a while, mid debate, Barney takes the baby from Ted, wanting to bounce and coo over his goddaughter — he scoops her up and instead of retreating back to his chair, he comes over and sits on the arm of Robin's chair. "Penny doesn't wanna move out to boring old Washington," he coos in a gooey voice. "Penny wants to stay near her aunt Robin and awesome uncle Barney, doesn't she?"

"Haha," says Ted dryly.

"I don't know, pooh bear," Tracy says. "Obviously I want you to be successful and, not gonna lie, the money would be great. But my parents and family are all around here, and so are these guys," she says, jabbing her head at Robin and Barney. Ted replies, and the conversation continues without her or her husband.

Barney bounces Penny on his knee. She holds her head up and seems pretty alert, locking big dark eyes — she looks insanely like Tracy — with Robin and smiling all dopey at her. "Hey, Penny," she says, smiling back because babies like that. She wonders what, if anything, Penny thinks at her age — or is it just a blur of smiling faces and feelings?

She glances up at Barney and feels a pang, because he's grinning down at the baby, his expression so soft and — and stupid, that it always makes her feel something, makes her wonder what if, just a tiny bit. "Do you wanna hold her?" he asks, leaning his side against the back of the chair, half surrounding her.

"Not really," she admits, looking back at Penny. She reaches out and pokes Penny in the round tummy. The baby giggles, tries to grab at her fist with flailing baby hands. Robin lets her catch hold, smiling despite herself.

"Don't worry, your mommy and daddy aren't moving anywhere," Barney says to her, his voice gooey again. "They're lame but not that lame."

"Admit it, you just don't want them to go because you'll miss playing with Penny."

"I'll also miss playing with Ted," he says frankly.

"That sounds wrong." Robin wrinkles up her nose to make a funny face for the baby. She'll say this for her nephews and nieces, they are super easy to entertain.

"You're right. I'd much rather play with Tracy."

She rolls her eyes up at him like really? Ted catches his fiancée's name. "What's this now?"

"Tracy and I are gonna have a hot love affair if you move away," Barney threatens-slash-announces. "So I guess you can't. You're cool with that, right, Tracy?"

Tracy laughs, without any hesitation, and harder at Ted's slightly alarmed expression. "Yeah, I think that's fair," she says. Robin should maybe feel threatened, but she sees the way Tracy looks at Ted as she teases him, and really doesn't. There's no chance in the world Tracy ever would.

"Come on," Ted says, exasperated. "Robin, back me up here."

She brushes her finger along Penny's soft cheek. "I don't know," she says. "It might be nice to get this idiot off my hands sometimes. You should take the job."

Barney laughs, delighted she's going with the joke, and he's half leaning against her so she can feel the tension drain from his body. She makes another funny face so Penny will laugh. She looks at Barney's hands curled around Penny's torso, holding her on his knee, the wedding ring bright on his finger.

They miss the last train back to the city, so Tracy makes up the guest bedroom for them — empty walls, a cheap looking full-size bed, a dresser that looks like IKEA. Barney fusses until Ted finds him some good hangers for his suit, and Tracy hooks them up with a second quilt since 'the heat is kinda spotty in this part of the house.'

Barney hangs his clothes up carefully and wanders off — naked — to shower (she takes a minute to enjoy the stripping and his ass as he leaves; then equally enjoys hearing a surprised shout from Ted in the hallway); she sits on the bed with her laptop, doing some quick work catchup. She hasn't checked her mail since this morning, and discovers a series of problems in her inbox: big story has fallen through, one of the correspondents she's been working with is having some source troubles. Another story she's been working on needs editing before they can present it, and Patrice (ugh) wants her on her radio show next Monday ('or Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday! Whenever works for you, Robin!'). Robin responds to her e-mails, tries to work on a second draft of the Turkey story, and puts off Patrice's e-mail.

Barney comes back, now wrapped in a towel, his hair dark and wet. He climbs into bed — the right side, just like at home, they've never discussed it but that's always where he sleeps — and slides himself towards her, not that there's a ton of room in the first place. He settles himself down, head parallel to her hip bone, drapes his arm over her lap to rest on her thigh. "We should have sex," he tells her, skimming his hand up under her shirt.

She considers the spreadsheet on her laptop, places we've had sex 2015. They're down sixteen percent from last year. She also considers the e-mail she's in the middle of, trying to fix Conners's editing problems. "I have to finish this up," she says.

"Come on, Ted and Tracy are in the next room and you'd have to be quiet, it'd be super hot," her husband whines. She wavers. Sensing weakness, Barney presses his mouth to her hip, shifts his weight over her so that she has to push her laptop down towards her knees. He braces his hand on the mattress on the other side of her body; kisses her hip, her belly, and when he makes it to her bellybutton she has to fight a ticklish giggle and pushes his head away from her. "Okay, slow down, champ. I really do need to finish this."

He moves away, flops back down onto his pillow. She runs her hand through his damp hair, he settles his palm in the space between her hip and navel. "You suck," he says, tucking his head against her side.

"Maybe in the morning," she says, pulling her laptop back up her lap. He grins, and she high-fives his outstretched hand.

He moves away after that, shifting around until he's comfortable. She turns off the bedside lamp and types in the glow of her screen; he settles down facing away from her, falls asleep after a little bit — she can tell because he stops moving. Robin finishes her editing, and then moves on to the next task because she feels like she's on a roll. It's when she's on her third and notices it's almost one that she stops typing.

The house is quiet. She stares blankly at her screen, listens to Barney's quiet breathing. She closes her laptop and puts it on the nightstand, climbs off the bed to undress in the dark. It's too late to shower, so she strips down to her underwear and tee-shirt, puts her rings on the nightstand, and climbs under the covers, shivering a little. Barney doesn't stir. She lies on her side, facing him, looking at his back and shoulder.

This is the wrong time to think about Ted again, but she does, her mind drifting back to earlier that evening, how relieved she feels whenever they come up here to see Ted's new family. That she can care about Ted again, without feeling guilty for holding back his happiness. If she'd been a good girlfriend to him back in the day, she realizes sleepily, she wouldn't be married to Barney. She spends a couple of seconds trying to imagine this universe — Barney's earlier joke about an affair with Tracy melds in her brain, makes her imagine up a world where Barney and Tracy have a kid, where she and Ted are visiting them — she remembers, vaguely, a fight she and Ted once had: he'd wanted to go away for the weekend to Vermont, and she'd wanted to anchor a weekend report she wasn't scheduled to. He'd wheedled at her until she'd agreed, even though it had been a great opportunity. They'd ended up having a pretty good time in the end, but she also rememberes the frosty drive up north, the look he'd given her when she'd wanted to pack her laptop, the argument they'd had that evening about it.

She tries to imagine Barney in this other world. Still sleeping around, chasing high after high, adventure after adventure, looking for whatever it was he was after. She likes to think it was her: likes to flatter herself that she was the thing missing in his life, love and someone to love him, be with him, even when he's a jackass or awful. Someone to keep him in line, keep him company, keep him satisfied. And she likes to think she's that person, likes to think she does that, owns him in that way, that all the promises and efforts and mistakes he's made, all the emotions he's poured into her, that they belong to her. That he belongs to her, that she can take care of him in a way no one else can. She likes to think that if he didn't have her, he wouldn't have anyone — that even in a world where they'd never gotten involved, there'd still be a hole in him. That no one else can have him like she can. That no one else can make him as happy.

That was what it comes down to, really. She can watch Ted with Tracy and be completely happy for them, happy to be free of the feeling that she's letting Ted down, that she was a bad girlfriend and the cause of his unhappiness. But she can't do that with Barney. She can't, for a second, imagine a world where he's with someone else and she's happy for them. Can't imagine a universe where Barney's with Tracy and she's smiling in their living room, making faces at their child, and thinking thank God.

Because — she reaches out, touches his back, rubs her palm up over his shoulder, then down his side until her fingers curl around his waist. She moves herself closer to him and spoons him properly, just for a little while, feeling the plane of his belly with her fingertips. This causes him to move in his sleep, make a quiet noise. She presses her head against his shoulder, breathes in the clean, soapy smell.

Because she needs him too. Not in the way that Ted needed her, with daily check-ins and a compulsive desire to take care of her, be the best for her — and not even, she has to admit to herself, in the way she wants him to need her, with all his heart, to belong to her and her alone. She needs him to be with her, to notice when she's distracted and try to distract her when she's too busy. To always have ten wildly inappropriate jokes when she's feeling down, to follow her wherever she goes. To always check out her ass when she walks by.

To not ask for much, to not need her to give anything up, to be a forceful enough personality that she can't ignore him, even when she kind of wants to. To not expect anything but that they'll be together and have fun together, and not require anything more.

To need her, to let her set the pace and the narrative of their weird little love story.

She's clinging to him a little tightly; she feels him stir, mutter a little as he rouses. "Robin…?" he asks sleepily, trying to pull himself loose from her. She lets him go, shifts away. He works up the energy to roll onto his back, head tilted towards her and eyes half open. He's frowning, confused and tired.

She thinks about Ted again, just for a second. "Hey," she says softly, tucking her arm under her pillow, pressing her other hand against the bed. "You know I — you know I'm glad we're married, right?"

He blinks at her, too tired to show much emotion. "Yeah," he says. He rolls onto his side, facing her. His eyes close.

"Because I am," she says. "I wouldn't have married anyone else."

"Mm," he says, eyes closed. "Not even Kevin?"

"Well. Three months, max," she says.

"Just like Nick Cage and Lisa Marie," he sighs, stretching. He looks at her in the dark. He doesn't tell her he wouldn't have married anyone else — she remembers Quinn — but she knows those marriages wouldn't have lasted. Quinn couldn't take care of him. He didn't need Quinn. "If you're trying to have sex now, give me a minute to wake up," he says after a moment of quiet thought.

She smiles. "I love you," she says. She doesn't ask him if it bothers her she was working and they didn't have sex earlier, because she knows it doesn't.

"I love you too," he says easily, sleepily, with a dopey smile.

She pulls herself over him and kisses him, her elbow on the bed by his shoulder, hand cupping his ear, and he reaches up and plays with her hair as he kisses back, lazily at first, but she feels him wake up after a minute. In a couple of ways. She hadn't intended on waking him up for sex, but within a few minutes the quilts are gone and she's on her back; his mouth is back on her navel and she laughs at the ticklish feeling. "Shh," he says, his eyes glinting up at her, "you'll wake up Ted."

She whacks the side of his head and he kisses her hip bone, and she keeps herself quiet and does think of Ted — just for a second, half a second, asleep in his bed with Tracy, her on the other side of the wall with Barney, and all the lines between the four of them, pasts and futures and choices, Penny in her crib. Ted needing her to be a good girlfriend and it exhausting her, wearing her out, leaving her tired and guilty; her in bed with her husband, needing him to need her more than anything else, the meaning in there, or maybe the lack of meaning, his hand splayed on her thigh…

And then Barney's other hand — and she stops thinking about anything at all.

Ted and Tracy will sort out Spokane. She and Ted wouldn't have, just as Barney and any of his past bimbos wouldn't have been able to, just as she and Barney could, or Marshall and Lily, and it's still a little scary to put them all on equal tiers, but in a sleepy post-sex haze it all seems to make sense, come together in her head: Ted needing her and wanting her was exhausting; Barney needing her and wanting her is the only way it should be. It means something, she's sure.

Tomorrow morning, Ted will lecture them for being noisy, Tracy will roll her eyes and mediate and cut up Penny's pancakes, Barney will laugh and preen and drag her into the conversation whenever she gets caught up in her e-mails. They'll take the train home to Manhattan, shower and change: she'll work and he'll write and get bored and pester her into going out to dinner.

But for now, Robin yanks some of the quilts free from her already-sleeping husband, wraps herself in them and settles herself back into bed. He's managed to starfish himself, and she nudges at his leg until he moves, rests her head on his outstretched arm, her hand curling around his bicep, and goes to sleep.