Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, nor do I own or am affiliated with How I Met Your Mother, its creators, its cast or any other such thing. I only own this story. This is not my sandbox, I'm just playing in it.

Barney always checks to make sure that she's asleep first.

It's too hard to say these things when she's awake. They're dating, but Barney knows what type of girl Robin really is, and she's a lot of what Barney pretends to be when there are people around. Unable to commit, unable to handle being really in love just yet. Scared.

In all fairness, Barney isn't much better. He's scared, too.

So in the dark of the night, after they've had sex and she's asleep, Barney tells her all the things that scare him most. How incomparably beautiful he thinks she is inside and out. How he's started to imagine putting a ring on her finger—the biggest diamond she's ever seen—and a gorgeous house that they'll live in with its own front porch that they'll invite their friends to. How sometimes he imagines having a family with her with lots of kids who will never have to grow up without two loving parents.

And when he's done, Barney sinks into the sheets and dreams of all of these things he'll tell himself he doesn't want when the sun comes up. He'll wake up in the morning, kiss Robin's cheek, cook her breakfast that she has to promise she won't tell the others about, and try not to feel like she's The One for him.

The cycle will continue, and Barney will secretly hope that one day she'll wake up and hear.

Most of the time, he's glad she doesn't. He can't take that sort of rejection.