The next day, with the rain still falling—a rain Ted Mosby would swear until his dying day he had summoned with his rain dance to prove his love to Robin Scherbatsky, and with which he finally, for the first time, made Robin his girlfriend.
After spending that first night with her at her apartment, that morning as Ted was leaving Robin's building—the witness to his triumph after a whole season of pursuing her, from plans to steal blue French horns, filling her living room with roses accompanied by a string quartet, chocolates, heartfelt talks, and more—he hailed a taxi to go back to his place, reminiscing about the incredible moments made possible by that rain.
Ted, with a profound euphoria that mirrored his rain-soaked clothes, was eager to tell Marshall and anyone who would listen his fantastic love story, the one with which he had conquered what he then believed was the love of his life. What he didn't expect was that upon getting out of the taxi, still under that pouring rain and soaked to the bone on the building's front steps, he would find Marshall there, hunched over on the steps, illuminated by the weak morning light.
The smile on Ted's face faded. There sat his best friend, water dripping from his hair onto his wet clothes. What caused Ted even greater concern was Marshall's expression: once cheerful, naive, or funny, it was now a vestige of pain, with empty, lost eyes, clutching in his hands the only object anchoring him to reality. There, Ted watched as Marshall raised between the fingers of his left hand a ring—not just any ring, but Lily's.
No words were needed in that long silence. Ted, assimilating the situation, could only offer his support by approaching, sitting on the same wet steps, and draping his right arm over Marshall's shoulders as a gesture of companionship, for a while in a silence heavy with scattered emotions.
The only comparison was that while this rain was for Ted the idyllic beginning of everything he thought he needed for his happy life, for Marshall it was the hardest blow he had ever felt, as if his life—once a perfect building—had just been struck head-on by the strongest, most destructive hammer, cracking its foundations, leaving a disaster in its once pristine facade, and throwing its interior into chaos and ruin.
Several minutes passed before Ted could no longer ignore the chill of the street and the water soaking their clothes. "Come on, Marshall. You have to come inside. You'll get sick in this weather," Ted said, getting to his feet on the steps and giving Marshall a gentle pat on the shoulder.
With difficulty, Marshall managed to stand up and followed Ted into the building's lobby and then down the hallway to their apartment, all in silence and devoid of energy.
Upon opening the door, the scene Ted encountered was a mirror image of Marshall just moments before, except the center of this misery wasn't the street rain but a familiar yet now foreign environment: their living room. There on the couch, without his work laptop, with the TV off and the curtains drawn, the only source of light was the living room lamp, casting a faint glow.
And there, in the armchair, in complete silence and as still as a statue, was Alyx. She, who was never one to stay still—always working, playing, or watching some show when at home—was now so motionless it was unsettling for Ted.
As Ted moved closer, he saw that Alyx wasn't asleep; she just wasn't moving. She sat with her back straight, her hands pressed firmly on her thighs, as if anchoring herself to reality. She was wearing one of Marshall's oversized sweatshirts. Her face, normally lit by a confident smile or a spark of mischievous fun, was pale, carved in marble. Her gaze, usually so sharp and analytical as if deciphering a theory, was fixed on the opposite wall, seeing beyond the peeling paint, analyzing the variables of the catastrophe.
Before Ted could utter a word, he heard, "Ted," she said without her gaze shifting from the wall. Her voice was stripped of emotion, flat, devoid of its usual confident or playful air.
"Alyx? What happened?" Ted asked, a slight hesitation in his voice, though he already had an inkling from his last conversation with Lily.
Slowly, Alyx turned her head toward them. Her eyes moved slowly, taking in their state, especially Marshall's tall, soaked, and shattered figure, and settled on his clenched left fist. There, Alyx intuited what he was hiding, what he was holding onto so tightly: the ring.
The moment Alyx had that certainty, Ted observed a brief change in her expression—so fleeting yet so pained he hoped it was his imagination. But of course, it wasn't. The spasm of complete pain that crossed her face was so quick and intense it surprised Ted how she could control it and revert to an inscrutable mask.
"Lily left," Alyx declared, with a coldness as if delivering a report. But Ted, having seen that small moment when her mask slipped and was hastily replaced—and with years of friendship with all three—recognized a glimpse of the emotional maelstrom she was hiding beneath the surface: protectiveness, rage, helplessness, immense love, and pain.
"She took a flight to San Francisco for an art program." She paused, and her voice cracked slightly. "I couldn't… We couldn't… she…" Alyx couldn't finish what she wanted to say.
But Ted understood. Of course. The helplessness of not being able to make her stay. With her. With them. And what was more crushing: that Alyx didn't know how to keep their triangle—her Marshall, her Lily, and herself—together and safe from this pain. So, all she could do was guide Marshall to the armchair beside her, making space for him.
Ted witnessed, for the first time, that neither Alyx nor Marshall was capable of speaking or leaning on each other as they used to. They couldn't. He could see that their complicity and their love for each other were fractured in a way he didn't fully comprehend. So, after taking off his wet jacket, he sat in the right corner of the sofa, with Marshall in the other corner near the door and Alyx in the center.