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There's a certain way the world feels when you pause everything. There's a certain way the world feels when it rains and when everything feels like it’ll come crashing down on you. The world tends to feel endless and empty in those moments. And that's exactly the way Robin feels standing in front of her husband Barney, outside of a chinese restaurant in the rain.
Heavy rain soaks them as they stand with tears in their eyes. Robin is holding onto her purse that is now soaked and ruined with both her hands like an anchor. She is standing so far away from her husband that it feels as if everything is drifting away with the water in the drain pipes. Barney’s suit is drenched but he doesn’t seem to care. Robin is wearing a yellow raincoat and her hair is wet and slicked back and for the first time in her life, she feels like she made a giant mistake.
The streets are barren and wet and it’s 12:00am on a Saturday in New York City. The street lights shine down on the wet concrete and make the street look like a scene from a dramatic rom-com that Robin would never watch. There are no taxis in sight, no cars, no people walking to Central Park or Times Square, nothing, as if they scared them all away.
Robin and Barney had been arguing about Robin’s work inside that small chinese restaurant, sitting beside a laundromat. Robin is going to France this week, to anchor a story about The Louvre and The Eiffel tower. It’s the 10th trip Robin would be going on for work, which meant Barney would also have to come along with her. Travel was difficult for Barney and tensions began to build between the two of them as Robin’s work gave her more opportunities to travel; which also gave her more opportunities to grow her career. They had been arguing inside while paying their bill and had now just stepped into the rainy, mucky street. Robin regrets even bringing it up, she regrets even accepting the job.
“I sacrificed everything for you!” Barney argues.
Robin’s mouth opens in shock, she rolls her eyes and lets out a frustrated growl as she stuffs her receipt inside her ruined purse.
“I thought you wanted to support me and my career!”
“Of course I wanted to support you. But sometimes it feels like you love your job more than you love me.”
“I’ve always been focused on my career, Barney. It’s nothing personal.” Robin can feel the sting in her words, but she doesn’t feel as though she’s wrong.
“Do you love your job more than you love me?”
Robin bites the inside of her cheek, hard. For a second her mind travels over to her job. The dream she’s had since she was 17 years old, traveling the world and writing about important issues, becoming a successful journalist. She looks at Barney again, the person she loves the most in the world. She can tell he’s waiting for an answer that takes away all his doubts, one she can’t give. Because she knows what she would say and knows it would break his heart. And she loves Barney more than she’s loved anyone, ever, and she can’t hurt him like that.
“Don’t ask that.”
“No, seriously answer the question.” Barney says, he steps closer to Robin, eyebrows wrinkled and rain gets heavier as he steps in front of her. “Do you love your job more than you love me? Because it sure feels like it right now!”
“That’s not fair!” Robin argues, very poorly.
“Just answer the question! Do you love your job more than you love me?”
Robin hesitates, before throwing back her question. Stepping closer to Barney, hand on his chest. “Do you like being single more than you like being with me?” She asks. She doesn’t even know where this is coming from, there was no doubt of his commitment to her in the entirety of their marriage.
“That’s not fair!”
“Answer the question!” Robin yells.
Everything around them shatters, the world feels foggy and uncertain, and there they are, standing in front of each other. Unsure if they are still perfectly irrevocably in love.
Then suddenly, all of this doesn’t matter. What they want, or what they need, or what they feel, that doesn’t matter anymore. The stupid questions they’ve been asking don’t matter. Because they both look up at each other and see how broken they both look. Robin can feel how desperate she is to hold onto her soulmate. Robin thinks back to Marshall and Lily’s old tradition of pausing their arguments when it became too much. She goes for the Hail Mary and yells ‘pause!’ With desperation.
“You can’t pause. Not now, not for this. Tell me this is still what we both want.”
“I said, pause .” Robin begs, through tears and gritted teeth.
They stand there looking at each other, Robin focusing on Barney's blonde hair soaked. His hair almost looks brown when it’s soaked in water. Robin looks at Barney’s face, she wants to reach up and kiss him and tell him she was wrong. But she doesn’t believe she’s wrong and she doesn’t feel like lying to Barney anymore.
There’s music somewhere playing in the distance, probably inside the old laundromat. Robin recognizes it, she’s surprised she can hear the song so clearly. She’s surprised how loudly the song seems to be playing, but remembers her trip to the same laundromat with Barney. They played incredibly awful music at full blast inside the barren building while they waited for their laundry. Now she can hear the song even clearer, Save It For A Rainy Day by the Jayhawks . Their song from their very first dance inside Maclaren’s pub. Robin smiles and Barney catches it through the fog of other emotions.
“What are you smiling about?” He asks.
She shakes her head with a giggle and wipes her tears away with her sleeve.
“It’s our song.”
Robin watches Barney confused for a moment, looking towards the small laundromat on the corner. She can see instant recognition as the song begins to play its first few lines.
“Dance with me?” He asks, holding his hand out in the rain.
“This is kind of ironic.” Robin chuckles, as Barney pulls her into his arms.
They don’t say anything. Just sway side to side as they become entirely soaked in rain, their hands intertwined like a steel grip. When the song reaches the chorus Barney raises his hand and twirls Robin around and back into his arms, like a professional ballroom dancer. Barney lowers Robin down, in his arms and kisses her, she feels like a princess. Her high heels make her feet slip on the concrete as he twirls her around a couple more times. She laughs and he catches her as she almost falls.
“Careful there, Scherbatsky.” Robin warns, with a wink.
“I got you.” Barney says, and it’s not teasing like Robin. It’s dead serious and Robin knows that he would never let her slip. He holds her closer again. He is tickling her with his breath as they both sing along to the song playing muffled inside the laundromat. She’s holding onto his shoulders so tight and she steps out of her heels bare feet on the pavement.
Their laughs echo down the street, and so do their voices, as they sing their favourite song again and again, even as the song ends. They hold onto each other afraid to let go of this moment in fear of losing it forever.