Yes, a heart will always go one step too far
Come the morning and the four corners I see
What the moral of the back story could be
Come with me, go places.

So, okay, like Robin said. It all started the day we told you guys we had divorced.

I remember that day! It was when I invited everyone over to look at the house — Tracy and I had just moved in, and it was finally…

— Shh, Ted. Daddy's talking. So there we were…

2016.

No one says anything about it until the end of the evening, when jackets are being pulled on and goodbyes are being exchanged. It's a minute of mild chaos, everyone moving around and talking to everyone else. Lily catches Robin by the elbow and hugs her.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Lily asks in a whisper, standing on her toes to reach Robin's ear.

Robin hugs back, squeezes. "Yeah, I'm fine," she says. Lily pulls away, keeping her hands on Robin's arms, searching for a crack, sign of weakness, or lie. Robin smiles back, polite, bemused. "Seriously, Lily."

"How can you be fine?" Lily asks, her grip tightening.

Robin inhales, seems to consider the question. She looks over Lily's shoulder, at the door, Barney sharing some joke with Ted. She shrugs and looks back at Lily. "I don't know?" she says, her voice rising a little in the question. "But it's fine."

Tracy makes her way over to the women, both hands holding empty glasses. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, seriously," Robin says, smiling with fond exasperation at her friend's worry. "Look — me and Barney were never the marrying type. I think we did a great job under the circumstances. I don't have any regrets. About any of it." She shrugs.

"How can you say that?" Lily asks, her eyes wide and searching.

Tracy frowns. "Yeah! Ted and I have been together almost as long as you two, and if he wanted to break up, I'd be a wreck."

"It's —" Robin starts to say, more exasperation starting to creep into her tone.

"Hey, Robin," Barney calls over from the door. "The car's here, we gotta go." He nods outside.

"We're still friends," Robin says, pulling herself out of Lily's grip. "Really, guys. Nothing is going to change."

She smiles at them reassuringly, her eyebrows raised, don't be ridiculous, ever the voice of detached reason, but Lily and Tracy don't look convinced.

Ted catches her at the door and gives her a farewell hug. "Just call if you need us. Any of us," he says softly.

Robin pats his back. "Why is everyone treating me like I'm dying?" she asks, pulling away. She smiles at his confusion. "Cool your jets, Schmosby. Really. Me and Barney are fine." Ted looks confused and devastated. She pats his cheek. "I'll call you next time I'm in the city."

She gives Marshall a quick bye and hurries down the path to the waiting taxi. Barney is already sitting inside; she opens the door and he slides to the far end of the seat to make room for her. "Geez, that took forever," he complains. "the train station," he adds for the driver's benefit.

"Yeah, sorry," she says.

"No one ran me through the sympathy gauntlet," Barney continues. Robin laughs at his petulant tone.

"What can I say? Barney Stinson goes through a break up and everyone assumes it's his own fault," she teases. He laughs under his breath. They sit on opposite ends of the bench, not touching, and fall into a silence for a few minutes, Barney on his phone and Robin looking out the window, at the quite streets and houses. "Hey," Robin says.

"Huh?" His face is lit by the screen of his phone.

"We… we're cool, right?" she asks searchingly. "All that BS we told them wasn't just BS?"

"Of course we're cool," he says, in his real voice, full of desperate sincerity. "I actually think that went pretty well."

"Right? I was expecting way more interrogation."

"Dumb questions."

"An intervention."

"At least a speech from Ted about love and whatever."

"And another one from Lily telling us we don't know what we want."

They both chuckle. It isn't as easy, or as funny, as it used to be, Robin can't help but notice. "I really do still want to be friends," she says.

"Hey," he says, sincere again, smiling at her across the bench. "Me too." He glances down at his phone, slides it back into his pocket. "We made the right decision," he says.

"Yeah," she agrees, closing her eyes, opening them. It kind of sucks, she doesn't say. It's the right decision, but it kind of sucks. But between quitting now or sticking it out and growing to hate one another — she doesn't want to take that risk. Neither of them do. She reaches across the backseat to pat his leg. "I'm glad we did."

They take the train back to the city, to Barney's place. By then it's pretty late. Barney whines a little but helps her get her stuff together. Robin fills one suitcase and packs most of the rest of her things in boxes. "Would you mind calling someone to take it to our storage place tomorrow?" she asks, straightening herself up after taping and labelling the last box of clothes. "I can pay."

"No problem," Barney says, from where he's … mostly just been watching her from the sofa.

"Thanks. And thanks for the help packing, champ," she says. He raises his glass in a toast to her as she stretches. She checks her watch: it's almost three. "I'll be in Thailand for the rest of the month, but I should be back by June 4th. I can pick up my stuff then, if you're okay holding onto it."

"Seriously," he says. "No problem. I barely use that storage container anyway." He shrugs. "You can keep the whole thing as you want."

"Maybe," Robin says. It sounds easy, and therefore tempting. "Agh, no," she says, running her hand through her hair. "It's probably not a great idea. We're divorced, remember? No mixing stuff."

They both look at the boxes piled up in living room. Clothes, shoes, mugs, books, photos, knick-knacks, all the delirium of a life together. But not everything. Barney's leaning against a throw pillow she bought last year, there are plates and books and candles scattered through the apartment still, food she'd bought, lightbulbs she'd changed — all the little things that weren't worth taking.

"Speaking of mixing stuff," he says, and she smiles and can tell from his tone what he's about to say, "where are you staying tonight?"

"At this point I think I'm going to grab a shower and head straight to the airport," she says, checking her watch again.

"Okay," he says, turning on the TV.

She takes a shower, using her soap and shampoo — two more things she hadn't bothered to pack. She considers throwing them out, but decides to let Barney take care of it if he wants to. This whole thing feels surreal. This is the last time I'll take a shower here, she tells herself, but it doesn't feel meaningful or anything. She takes her time washing up, wraps herself in Barney's bathrobe when she's done since hers is packed away, dries her hair and redoes her make up, redresses in comfy traveling clothes and packs her previous outfit in her suitcase.

Barney's still watching TV when she comes back out, barefoot. "There can't be anything good on this time of night," she says, sitting next to him on the sofa.

"Korean soaps," Barney explains. She calls a cab and watches with him for a few minutes, but she doesn't speak Korean.

She tries to tell herself it's meaningful — this is the last time we'll do this — but mostly she's just tired, even after her shower. The TV's volume is low, and the apartment is quiet around them. She gets a text when the taxi arrives.

"Okay, I gotta go," she says. She stands up, and so does he. "I'll see you in a few weeks," Robin says. She hugs him, kisses his cheek. "See you soon!"

He kisses hers. "Take care of yourself," he says, his tone just amused enough that it doesn't sound like an order.

She makes it as far as the elevator with her suitcase before his apartment door opens again. "And get me a souvenir from Thailand!" Barney calls.

Robin laughs at her ex-husband. "I'll see what I can do," she promises, timing her wink to the ding of the elevator doors.

They don't talk for the next couple of weeks, and it's actually a relief. Robin loves not having to worry about checking in with someone, entertaining her husband after a long day of work, or feeling guilty for ignoring him over an eighteen hour day. It's a relief to be alone and free of obligations.

But she can't resist calling him the morning before she flies back to the states. "You'll never guess what I just bought you," she says.

"Is that the ocean I hear?" Barney demands. "Dammit, Robin! You suck. I'm at work."

"Poor baby," she teases, moving through her hotel room to stand on the balcony, to increase the noise of the surf. "Did you take another consulting job?"

"Uh-huh, but this one is super lame. The FBI said it was a conspiracy case, but it's just trade deals and paperwork. Who cares about price fixing?"

"You're a real American hero," she teases, looking out at a white sand beach. "How is everyone?"

"Good. I had lunch with Lily the other day. Her boobs got even bigger, but she's starting to show, so, whatever. She just wanted to ask if I was heartbroken and growing a breakup beard."

"Are you?" Robin asks, wincing.

"Robin. Please. You know facial hair cramps my style. Especially now that I'm single again."

Something pinches in her. She doesn't want to talk about that part of their divorce. "Hey, so, you never guessed what I bought you."

"A picture of you in a topless swimsuit?"

"Ern!" Robin says, trying to imitate a buzzer. "Wrong! But you're on the right track."

"Nude beach?"

"Nude magazine," she says, laughing. "I cleared out a newstand for you. There's Thai Maxim, and a bunch of ones whose titles I'm not even going to try to pronounce. All for you, buddy."

"You shouldn't have!" Barney says, sounding genuinely touched. "When do you come in? This weekend?"

"Tomorrow," she says. "Or, I guess the day after tomorrow, your time. I'll be in town for a week, so we'll have to meet up."

"Definitely," he says. "Where are you staying?"

Ranjit picks Robin up from the airport. She's exhausted, dozes the drive into the city with sunglasses on, and almost falls asleep again in the elevator up. She thinks she might be imagining being conscious. When Barney opens the door, she gives him a peck on the cheek and pushes her plastic bag of Thai magazines and duty-free airport snacks into his arms. "I'm going to sleep for like, twelve hours," she says, as he smiles and lets her in. "Don't you dare wake me up."

When she wakes up, she's disoriented. She doesn't know what time it is, and for a minute, where she is. The sheets are soft around her, but she feels greasy and tired, is still wearing her jeans and bra. She blinks up at the dim, scalloped ceiling for a minute, then turns onto her side.

Barney is sleeping next to her, curled up on his side of the bed, leaving her plenty of space. They're not even close to touching, but it still startles her for a minute to see him there. Like when he'd suggested she just crash at his while she was in town, he'd somehow vanish from his apartment in the process.

Stupidly, Robin reaches out and touches his shoulder. He grunts in his sleep and doesn't stir.

Whatever. Friends can stay with friends. She stalks off to take a shower.

Once she's under the hot water, her head clears a little. Barney's actually being pretty gentlemanly, she realizes: not bothering her in her sleep, sticking to his half of the bed, no 'accidental' touching or opportunistic groping. She has to admit she was a little worried it'd get weird, crashing at her ex-husband's place. She hadn't thought he'd let her stay with him without making a move of some kind. She'd actually sort of counted on it.

Barney's really grown up. She thinks it with a stab of pride.

Robin steps out of the shower and puts on his bathrobe and makes them breakfast — crepes, just about the only thing she can cook. Barney stumbles out of the bedroom maybe an hour later, his hair wet and with a towel around his waist. "You stole my robe," he accuses.

"I made breakfast," she counters. "Get dressed, asshole."

He leans on the island and watches her with narrowed eyes. "It's my robe. Get your own."

"Mine's in storage," she says. "Suck it up."

"No," he says. "We're not together anymore, so you can't just steal my stuff."

She looks at him. He crosses his arms over his chest, angry for some reason she can't name. For some ridiculous reason, since she's in his apartment after he said she could stay with him in the first place — she looks at his arms crossed over his chest, his stupid sulking pout, his towel low on his waist.

She clicks off the stove and takes the pan off the heat. "Fine," she says. "You want your robe?" She undoes the sash, right there in the kitchen, and pulls it open. "Take it."

"Everyone backslides," he says comfortingly, a little while later. They're in bed again, lying on their backs — she'd collapsed backwards when they were done, leaving her feet draped over his calves, her head at the foot of the bed, hair falling over the edge. "It's totally normal."

"Uh-huh," she says, staring upside-down at the TV. With a grunt she pushes herself up on her elbows. He's lying splayed on his back: at some point in the last five minutes he's grabbed one of the pillows and is hugging it to his waist. They look at one another for a minute. "It's fine," she says.

"Really?" He looks concerned, and she gets it. They're not together. She doesn't want to be, and neither does he. This is dangerous territory.

"Really." She smiles at him. He grabs her ankle and yanks her up the bed a few inches, she laughs, sits up again, lies herself down beside him on her stomach with her arms folded under her head. "I just got off a twenty-two hour flight. It's nice to work off some… tension."

He smiles at her. "We're good?"

"Totally good." She does feel more relaxed — loose and springy, if a bit sore in… places. The good kind of sore. He rolls onto his side, squashing the pillow under him. "It's not like anything has changed. I mean, that's what we promised, right? Just because we broke up doesn't mean we're not friends… and aren't going to accidentally have sex sometimes." She snorts. "We're still us."

He laughs and sits up to give her a quick kiss on the cheek. "Well, I'm always happy to help you with your tension." He climbs out of bed, pulling on his hard-won bathrobe. "Did you say you made breakfast? Is it edible?"

"Oh, go to hell, asshole," she says, throwing his discarded pillow at him before also getting up to redress.

They don't sleep together again while Robin is still in town — or at least, they don't have sex. They sleep in the same bed, no touching, no inappropriate groping. Robin doesn't cook again, but Barney gets extra bagels. She takes care of the storage locker situation, goes to work, has lunch with Lily and Skypes with Ted, and Barney does his own stuff: his consulting job, running, gym.

Lily, of course, just wants to know how she's doing, like if she asks enough in enough different ways Robin will fall apart in her arms. Robin doesn't. She feels fine — great, even. She's actually glad she and Barney got their backslide out of the way so soon, but she knows better than to tell Lily about it… or where she's been staying while she's in New York.

At the end of the week, Robin packs up to go to Cyprus. It's an afternoon flight, so she leaves the apartment when Barney leaves for work, loiters around the Upper East Side for a couple of hours before taking a cab to LaGuardia. When they'd left together, he'd offered a casual bye and they'd quickly hugged. It had felt weird, weirdly casual.

But that makes sense, she reminds herself, later, in the VIP lounge. They're friends. That's how friends say goodbye.

Her stint in Cyprus leads to two weeks in Greece reporting on the refugee crisis: from there, Robin heads straight to Brazil for the Olympics. She barely has time to breathe, let alone sleep or call her friends — manages a couple of Skype calls and voicemails, late at night or in weird moments during the day. It's hard to keep in touch with everyone: she's so busy, and whenever she checks in with home everything is exactly the same: Lily is pregnant, and that's going the way pregnancy always does. Marshall hates his job. Ted and Tracy are sickeningly happy. Penny and Marvin and Daisy are small and obstensibly cute.

It's… boring. There's never any change to the story, nothing new when she calls. She still calls, because they're her friends and she loves them. But they never have anything new to say.

She does call Barney, a couple of times. Not out of favoritism or feelings or whatever. He just always has a story to tell, some ridiculous new adventure to report. "I work for the FBI," he tells her, one evening where she's lying exhausted beside the pool at her hotel. She'd just asked him why his work stories weren't super boring like Ted's were. "I could be filing paperwork and it'd be awesome because I need a badge to do it."

"You don't have a badge, you're a consultant," she reminds him. God, it's hot. If she wasn't on the phone, she'd dive into the pool.

"I'm having one made," he says. She laughs. "How's Rio?"

"I'm so tired I can barely move," she says. "I'm lying beside a pool right now —"

"What are you wearing?" He interrupts.

"Black two piece."

"Nice."

"Yeah, anyway, I'm lying here in my sunglasses and bikini and I have a drink in reach, one of the fruity ones Marshall likes? And I still can't stop thinking about all the events and editing and reports and people I have to chase down and wrangle and how to get the story down and…" Robin trails off in a frustrated sigh.

"You sound tense." He emphasizes the last word, a bit of a smirk in his voice.

"Totally." She lets her eyes fall closed behind her sunglasses. She smirks. "Although, interviewing all those hot, sweaty, athletes helps."

After she says that she feels a brief stab of — something like worry. Like she just said the wrong thing. But that's ridiculous: they're not together, and even when they were, she didn't hide her love of certain well-toned hockey players no more than he stopped sizing up stupid trashy skanks. So there's nothing wrong with saying it. Besides, they're just friends now.

"Sure," he says. If she could see him, she'd know if he meant it, but he's on the other end of a phone, a continent away.

She clears her throat. "Not that I have time for that." She wonders if she should make time for that, what she's holding herself back for. "So far. Anyway, I gotta get going. No rest for the wicked."

"Cool. Talk to you later," he says, and she tries not to figure out if he sounds relieved.

After the Olympics, she has two weeks in the States. She heads straight for Barney's place. He cracks a joke about turn-down service, she gives him a bottle of Cachaça, takes a shower, then a nap. He wakes her up around seven to ask if she'd want to split a pizza if he ordered one.

"Too sleepy." She rolls onto her back and stretches, curling her arm behind her pillow, arching her back slightly. She remembered to change out of her travel clothes this time, and is wearing a tank top and not much else.

He rolls his eyes and knots his tie. "I'm going out. I'll get you a doggy bag or something."

She frowns a little and goes back to sleep.

He's busier than she is this time, working long hours while she's on a break from work. It isn't that Robin relies on Barney for her entertainment, but it's a little odd, being on totally opposite schedules when she's crashing at his place. She visits Lily and makes it up to White Plains for a day — by now, everyone has more or less stopped prodding her about her quote-unquote heartbreak — catches up on sleep, goes to the movies alone, gets a massage.

She and Barney don't argue, don't have sex. When it's time for her to jet off to California, she kisses him on the cheek at the door.

It's the same thing for the next six weeks: Three, four, five days somewhere, a day or two at Barney's. They hang out sometimes, but sometimes he has work or she does, and it's nice not to need to be held accountable to him but when he doesn't come home until late she wonders what he's doing.

And they're friends. It's normal to wonder. It's fine to wonder.

Start of October, Robin gets hit with a bitch of a job: Nineteen hour flight to Mumbai for a day's worth of coverage, twelve hour red-eye to Seville that evening, two days in Spain and then a seven hour flight back to the States. She lands so tired she's dizzy, sore and tense and cranky: she stumbles into a cab and struggles to stay awake the drive to the Upper East Side.

Barney isn't even home. She still has a key — she makes it as far as the sofa before she collapses and sleeps. He wakes her up what feels like ten minutes later, shaking her shoulder. "What are you doing here?"

"I just got in," she says blearily. Frowns. "What do you mean, what am I doing here?" He looks… something, some expression she's not used to, is too tired to figure out. She pushes herself upright. "I thought… that we had a thing." Even as she says it, she realizes that they've never really talked about it, that she's just shown up here between jobs. They never agreed on an arrangement. By his expression, Barney realizes it too.

"We — um, you can crash here, whatever," he says, frowning, looking towards the door, "but you could call, maybe? Like, hey, dude, head's up, I'm going to crash at yours while I'm in town?"

"I didn't think — what's it matter to you?" she asks, pushing her hair out of her face. "What, am I going to interrupt…" she means it to be a sarcastic jab, but realizes that that could well be it. That that could well be why he's looking towards the door. They're not together. This isn't a like you'd cheat on me situation. "Oh my god," she says, suddenly awake.

"Robin —" he says, exasperated and pleading.

"Oh my god, this is humiliating," she says, barely hearing herself. "I'm going to — I'm gonna go."

"Wait," he says. He gets his hand on her arm, like he could stop her —

"No, it's cool, it's totally…"

"You can crash here. I want you to crash…" he's saying at the same time.

She tries to tug her arm away, his grip tightens, she's exhausted and angry and humiliated and he's tense and frustrated and pleading — but they're none of those things, they can't be, they're friends, and they both agreed shaking hands and quitting would be the best, the cleanest, the right solution.

Then she's pushing herself towards him and he's kissing her.

It's fast and rough and angry and all the things they swore they weren't and would never be and were divorcing to avoid reaching. She wants to destroy him, hurt him, crush him. She wants him to never, ever stop. To slap him across the face and keep him to herself forever.

When they're done they lie side by side. She turns on her side, facing away, listening to his breathing.

They don't talk about it.

She doesn't get a hotel room.

Robin Skypes him from Beijing the next week, and it's all back to normal again. He recommends some restaurants and tries to teach her how to order in Mandarin, she accuses him of trying to teach her how to say dirty stuff and he laughs and agrees.

Everything is fine. They're friends.

Robin knows she shouldn't push it, but she gets a few days off to attend Lily and Marshall's moving-slash-Halloween party, and doesn't call Barney to let him know she'll be swinging by. She lands in JFK just past six AM and catches a cab, telling herself she's being ridiculous, that she doesn't have to book a hotel room, because she and Barney are friends and she's welcome to crash at his place any time. Just as she'd stay with Marshall and Lily, or Ted and Tracy. Barney is just the one with the room.

So they've backslid twice. So what? It happens.

She has nothing to worry about. No reason to call ahead, because he has nothing he needs to hide with advance notice; he might be annoyed, but that's a tradeoff she's willing to make, her relief against his petty anger.

The more she thinks about it, the more ridiculous it all sounds in her head. But she still braces herself when she arrives at Barney's building, clutches her carry-on tight as she presses the elevator button.

She tells herself she has nothing to worry about — worry shouldn't even be crossing her mind, friends don't worry about what other friends are doing — up until the moment she unlocks the door to his apartment.

He's sitting on the sofa. His eyes lift from his phone, go wide, he drops his phone and jumps to his feet and pales.

She doesn't feel anything, not dread or fear or anger.

"Hey, I told you to call if you're gonna just show up here," he says, hurrying over. He's wearing his blue robe. She brushes past him, still holding her bag. Heads down the hall, into the bedroom. The bathroom door is closed. She hears the shower.

She listens to the water running in the bathroom. Thinks about barging in, yelling, grabbing the skank and pulling her out of the shower, out of the apartment, kicking her naked to the hall. It's not her fault, though. Robin wants to, wants to humiliate her, punish her, take it out on someone else — but it's not the girl's fault.

She feels it all build up inside her.

Barney trails after her like a dog that just crapped on a rug. "I told you, you have to call ahead." His voice is whiny, defensive.

This is worse than the time with Patrice.

"Besides," he says. She shifts her gaze. He licks at his lip. "We're not together. So actually, this isn't a big deal. Like, whatever, am I right?"

She looks at him. Sees a hundred things at once. All the things he's ever said and done. The way he treated her the first time they broke up. The way he'd been so eager, so quick to say they should break up. For the first time in a very long time, she looks at him, his robe half open, exposing smooth, muscled skin, and doesn't find it attractive. Doesn't find him handsome. Her ears are ringing. Her mouth is open, her eyes feel glassy.

"I mean," he's saying, whining, standing there with his hands limp at his sides, his smile glassy, "we're friends. What a funny thing to happen to us friends, am I ri—"

At least when he'd broken up with her the first time, he'd been shitty to her face.

"You haven't changed at all, have you?" she asks. It's supposed to sound accusatory. Her face feels hot. It sounds tired, defeated.

"Why should I change?" he asks, pulling up his posture, trying for bluster, a shit-eating grin and false confidence. Why should he change, he's awesome. He's not going to apologize. They're not together. They're not friends. They divorced. He has nothing to apologize for.

She wants to slap him. "You're pathetic."

The smile slides off his face.

"You're — god, you're just pathetic," she hisses, her face hot and eyes stinging and hand still clutching her bag. "Is this what you do? Revert back to your more disgusting self the second you've escaped your shitty marriage?" Their shitty marriage, the marriage they agreed was a mistake, the marriage they agreed was a success, not to be regretted, that still mattered even if it had been a mistake, that their friendship would be preserved if they just quit before things got awful…

He looks up, away. "No, I," his eyes flicker from her to ceiling to the bathroom door. "I want to be friends," he says quietly. "I really do."

"Just — fuck you, Barney." She doesn't know what else to say. Maybe that's all there is to say.

He doesn't seem to know how to reply. He looks small. Pathetic.

The water turns off in the bathroom. "I have to go," she mumbles, running her hand over her wet face.

"Robin, wait —" he says. He tries to grab for her, but she breaks free easily. She's out the door and at the elevator in less than a minute.

He doesn't follow.

2020.

DOOOOOOUUUUUUCHE.

Wow. You're an asshole.

A total dick.

I! Can't! Believe! You'd! Be! Such! A! Douche!

Ow! Ow! Lily, stop — ow! Marshall! Make your woman stop hitting me!

Sorry, buddy, I'm ruling douche on this one.

Robiiin! Make them stop!

You know, I'd totally forgotten what a dick you were until I was telling the story just now?

Please, Robin, you know all about my dic — Oww! Lily!

Yeah, you have all this coming to you and more.

Man, I thought this was supposed to be a romantic story on the occasion of my and Tracy's marriage. This is just sad.

Right? I can see why it took Robin three and a half years to agree to go out for coffee with you after all that.

Okay! Okay! First of all, that was totally not my fault.

Boo! Boo!

Shame!

You suck!

Totally not my fault. Me and Robin had been broken up for six months at that point, I was a free agent! Besides, after that she got all weird and dramatic at the Halloween Party — remember, Lily?

Oh! Was that why you were all weird and "Ted is my secret soulmate?" and creepy?

…Wait, what's this now?

Look, I was going through some stuff. I'm not proud of it.

And it didn't take her three years to forgive me, b-t-w. More like a week and a half.

Still douchey, bro.

Nobody asked you, Ted!

And, yeah, sure: Try half a year before I even thought about this asshole again. After all that bullshit I took a long assignment in Germany. I came back to the States in '17 because of something… dammit, what was it again? Probably nothing important. Whatever. The point is, I didn't talk to Barney again until March of that year…