PART TEN

28. Cold

Ted volunteers to identify her body. Surprisingly, to him, her Dad flies down and insists that she be taken back to Canada. Katie comes too, weeping and making things ten times harder.

"Her skin is so cold!" Robin's sister sobs.

Ted wants to snap at her. "What did you expect, you stupid little girl? She's dead!"

But he can't do it. Can't be mean. Even though he's had every reason this year to act up, to break out, to scream, to just let fly and finally express his frustration at the world…

He can't do it. He's the good guy.

84. Hit

All Robin wants to do is get away from Barney because everything's getting way too intense and weird.

But when he goes out of town for a few days on business, she watches her email and her cell phone like a hawk, waiting for the contact from him that never comes. When he returns home, Robin decides that she's never going to sleep with him again. She's absolutely made up her mind… right up until he sends her the following text:

"Hey, wanna see me throw a punch at a guy? Ten minutes, MacLaren's."

Damn him. That's practically seducing her.

86. Naked

Two guys corner Barney in the showers.

It's almost too stereotypical to be true. He almost blurts out "where's the soap?" before one of them slams him into the wall. He knows exactly what they want from him.

In the end, he gets off lightly, with only a black eye. He's not stupid and he's not weak and he has no intention of becoming a full-time cock-sucker.

The decision to take the pills is a purely rational choice: Escape now, or live out a long, painful life in prison.

But he wakes up, blaming himself for getting the dosage wrong.

90. Gag

"Stop talking," Robin says, pulling at the end of his tie so that it pools into her open hand.

Barney ignores her so she pushes him back on to the bed, pinning his wrists beside his shoulders.

Still he keeps on yakking.

"Right…" Robin sighs, shoving the tie into his open mouth and pulling at his zipper. "Do your "Oh" face, buddy." He obliges when she takes hold of his dick and pumps it.

She has a brief fantasy of doing this whenever he's being annoying - in MacLaren's, up in her apartment, in front of the others.

She smiles.

94. Cruel

When Robin dies, both Lily and Marshall feel weirdly numb. They tell themselves: It's not like they ever visualised her on their Front Porch. They didn't expect her to grow old gracefully.

They both feel horribly guilty about this.

At the funeral, Lily overhears Katie round on Barney, her words full of bile and spite. "So, you gonna kill yourself now?" The grieving girl snarls. It seems unnecessarily cruel.

It suddenly brings everything home to them. They realise Barney was never on their Front Porch either.

Lily wonders why she even wanted the stupid Front Porch in the first place.

75. Price

Barney can see the outline of her nipple piercing, making the fabric bunch a tiny bit beneath the sheet that covers her body.

He can see the shadow of a bruise on her pale cheek where some guy's marked her.

He can see the sharpness of her collarbones where's she's lost weight. Just like him.

She looks like she's sleeping.

She's not sleeping.

It should be so easy to follow her. He reaches up and touches the scar on his neck, the mark of failure.

Even in death, Robin Scherbatsky still manages to be way more awesome than he is.

34. Dark

Robin likes dark chocolate.

Lily doesn't get it. She and Barney like the smooth, creamy texture of milk chocolate. Barney pulls a face at Robin across the table and says that dark chocolate is way too bitter.

Lily tends to agree with him.

Robin just rolls her eyes and smirks.

Suddenly, there's an undercurrent that Lily picks up on, some invisible showdown going on between Barney and Robin. Lily's experienced this sort of thing enough in her kindergarten class to know when to intervene. "Now kids, play nicely," she says sharply.

Barney, at least, has the sense to back down.

33. Dangerous

Barney looks at Robin over the top of his tumbler, the ice cubs clinking in the bottom of the glass. Her eyes follow them, hypnotised.

"Penny for your thoughts, Scherbatsky?" He says, softly.

"How dare you devalue my thoughts!"

He smirks. "Come on, spill."

She leans forward, conspiratorially, whispering into his ear. "I was thinking about what it would be like to get my nipples pierced."

He groans. Her fingers creep along his thigh.

"And I want you to do it," she says.

Something stirs inside him, uncoils and beats its wings. Something Barney didn't even know existed until now.

45. Happiness

"I'm in love with you," Barney says, defeated, bowing his head. "You know that."

Robin lifts his chin. "Hey… hey…" She looks… so different, after all these months. She looks almost as though she's going to say it back.

He feels like crying but she captures his mouth and kisses him, long and hard. "Are you sure you want to do this?" He asks.

This isn't them. They never talk about the important stuff.

"Yes," she says. "Yes."

They make love.

At least that's what he'd call it if he were any other guy and she were any other girl.