Your father's doorman gave us a weird look when we arrived at his building. I naturally assumed he was eyeing me, in my sweats and greasy hair and totally not belonging in some Upper East highrise; in retrospect, he was probably wondering what the hell your dad was doing with a baby. Your father was still holding you, and took you right over to the doorman while I trailed behind like an exhausted moron, a sidekick to the Barney Stinson show. "Hey, Clive," he said, holding you up like baby Simba in the Lion King — I screeched and ran towards your father, yelling her head, her freaking head until your father lowered you and was holding you right again. "Check her out!" your father continued, ignoring me: "This is Ellie. My kid. My daughter. Ellie Evelyn Stinson."

"That's not her freaking name," I snapped, and he let you take me from him. He pouted. Any of that deep my marriage failed and I'm scared stuff from my apartment had deserted him five minutes into our cab ride uptown.

"It should have been her name," he said.

I huffed and held you close and headed to the elevators; luckily, since I didn't actually remember what floor your father lived on, he followed me. "Elle Rose Renard is a beautiful name." I hadn't met Robin Scherbatsky yet, but had I, I totally could have rubbed it in his face that your local celebrity ex-wife likes it too. "Elle Renard was my grandmother. She raised my mom alone, even though it was like the forties and she was single and everyone thought she was a huge skank." It was kind of hard carrying you and your stuff all by myself, but your father didn't notice, just followed us into the elevator and pressed the button.

"That's kind of cool," he said. "So you named Ellie after her because you're also a huge —"

I hit him with your diaper bag.

"Because she's my hero and role model, and a super strong badass lady who could kick your ass!"

Your father kept his mouth shut for like a second. "But since you named Ellie after her, doesn't that mean you're kinda implying my kid should be like that too?"

"What, an awesome lady who can beat you up?" I sniffed.

Your father didn't really have an answer to that, mostly because I was holding you with one arm and holding your diaper bag menacingly in the other. As you know, history has totally proven me right where you're concerned, and your father doesn't stand a chance against you. I wish you could have met Grandma Elle, sweetie. She would have loved you.

"You know, Stinsons are awesome people too," your father said when we arrived on his floor.

"Are you sulking?"

"Yes," he admitted, and I laughed a little bit, couldn't help hit, his voice was so pouty and I hadn't expected the honesty. He smiled back at me, and it kind of felt like a moment — not a romantic moment or a sexy moment, but just… a thing. Like for one second, we were both thinking you're not too bad. That was new for both of us.

He unlocked his apartment.

It isn't as though it's changed drastically in the last ten years, but it looked different back then. Your father, as you've complained to me on many Sundays, likes things clean and tidy and organized. That's been true as long as I've known him, like he makes up for his personal messiness by keeping all his things in the correct place. It was worse ten years ago: black and steel and dark woods. A kitchen that I don't think had ever been used; a fridge with alcohol and not much else. I guess when Robin Scherbatsky had lived there it looked different — same furniture, but throw pillows and vases and nicknacks. That's how it started to look again when you were little. It was always so quiet, too. Fancy silent appliances, thick glass windows, and your father an incredibly loud man: even with the TVs, I wondered how he could stand it. I think he must be relieved that it's not that way anymore.

But back then I mostly thought aha, this is exactly what a corporate upper east side douchebag would live in.

He let me in, and I asked him where the nursery was, for my inspection. He took me down the hallway and through the first door. I remembered the second one, end of hall, led to his room; I hadn't been through this door before. "I used to use it for my shoes and accessories," he said, flipping on a light. "There was a cot against there for when my brother was in town or when Lily was my roommmate." Your room wasn't painted yet, just the same gray as the rest of the apartment, but your Aunt Lily had already painted the animal mural along the left baseboard, giraffes bending to look at ducks, armadillos trudging behind friendly tigers and deer and the odd dinosaur. I liked it right away for the design and the randomness of the animals she chose, marching across your room until the leader of the parade, the bear, painted so that he appeared to be peeking out of your window at the city. When you were two or three, your Uncle Ted added the city skyline mural to make them into pedestrians, your Aunt Tracy painting the sky rosy pink. So whenever you start complaining to me and your father that you're too old for baby murals in your bedroom, you're just going to have to suck it up. Your family put a lot of love into those paintings of yours.

Your father had cleared the room of cots and his own clothing, piling in a chair, lamp, and changing table. The rest of your room was dominated by a massive, absolutely ridiculously huge crib. "Were you expecting one baby or, like, six?" I asked. I put you down on your back in the crib. There was a pink knit blanket and tiny pillow laid out for you, but I grabbed both and tossed them onto the chair.

"Hey, my kid is getting the best," your father bragged.

"Don't put a blanket on her until she's like a year old," I said.

"But Tracy made it! It's cute!"

"Or pillows! Have you ever read a baby book? Don't your friends have kids?" You were still pretty much out from your feeding and car ride. I watched you settle and fall asleep in the crib, your little fist curling and opening again, and my attempts to be stern and strict pretty much fell flat. The crib was the size of a boat, and you just looked so cute lying there. He definitely didn't buy it at IKEA, like I did.

"Marshall lent me a book, but I was like, get me the audio version." I tore my gaze from you to him. He was now holding a gigantic stuffed bear with a yellow bow around its neck. "Look! Isn't this li'l guy just destined to be Ellie's favorite toy and childhood protector?"

"Have you been doing anything to prepare besides buying fancy stuff and making your friends paint cute animal murals?"

Your father grabbed a baby monitor from the table. "I have one of these, too! And Lily bought me some formula…" he immediately high tailed it out of the room. You were asleep and seemed to be okay, so I watched your tummy move in and out for a moment before I reluctantly followed him. Aside from going to the bathroom, we hadn't been in different rooms before now. And I did that with the door open.

Your father was talking away in the kitchen. "Lily says this stuff is really good, lots of probiotic shit. Are you breast feeding? That's kind of —" Neat, he said. Neat. Wonderful and mothering and nothing else. "— and look, Ted gave me this whole list of stuff, I have a bottle warmer machine thingy, and isn't this just the cutest li'l dish set?"

"She's not gonna be eating solid food for months!" It was a little plastic tropical jungle dish set, with a little tiny fork and cup and, ugh, my heart melted just looking at it.

He showed me the stroller he had tucked in his hall closet, a bag of baby clothes he hadn't put away yet, more toys, and eventually led me to his own bedroom just to show me the other half of the baby monitor, prominently set up on his dresser. "So you see," he said smugly, as I sat down slowly on his bed, a little overwhelmed, "I'm mega prepared to take care of Ellie for the next six to eight hours, and maybe weekends sometime if I'm not too busy."

To be honest, he did seem to have gone out and bought everything — more than I even owned at the time. It was kind of a weird realization, that he had fancy bottle warmers and a designer stroller and a beautiful east-facing nursery, and I had an IKEA crib in my sofa. He'd bought you toys upon toys and cute designer outfits you'd grow out of in a week and a half, and I'd relied on donations and craigslist.

It felt kind of… shitty.

Like somehow because I didn't have the money or space for this stuff, I was the loser, the worse parent. I just sat on your father's bed and kept holding your baby Burberry jacket — the one your father had just shown off to me a moment before — and stared at the high ceilings and hardwood floors and remembered the last time I'd been in this room and how my apartment smelled like laundry and Febreeze and diapers…

…And I burst into tears.

Your father skittered backwards, pressing himself up against the wall in a panic. "Dude, I know I'm awesome, but what are you doing?" he asked in a high voice that would have been funny, except I was currently sobbing into your brand new jacket, just weeping into my hands and the super soft wool, my nose running. I was so tired, sweetie. I was so tired and so overwhelmed and your father had all the money I didn't have and none of the investment I did. Back then, before he knew you, you were a game or a fun new posesssion, new and novel, the perfect way to get out of a wedding he was afraid of. And maybe you were more than that — maybe you were his chance, too, his last chance, 11th hour hail mary, to prove he could do something right, not screw up one last time. That if he bought you enough things he could make you happy, in a way he hadn't made anyone before.

Or maybe your father just thought you were an exciting new pet. I mean, you really didn't do much back then.

But I was tired and overwhelmed and I cried and cried, not saying anything, not thinking, really, just overtaken with pure emotional release: giving birth alone, my recent breakup, my fears about taking care of you, providing for you, your crib in a closet, your unreliable father who I still mostly thought of as a wall street douche, a man who'd only shown up at my door and wanted paternal rights so he could skip a wedding, who'd played on my love for drama and gossip to get my sympathy — and now who was being dramatic, huh?

"Jenny?" your father asked, really hesitantly, after this had been going on for a minute. (See what I did there? Answered my hypothetical question with some convenient dialogue? Your mother should have been a writer.) "Are you… okay?"

Somehow, the complete stupidity of that question helped. He sounded so hesitant. "What do you think," I sniffled, half laughing, "you freaking moron?"

"Has anyone ever told you you swear a lot?" your father asked. I heard him clear his throat, and footsteps, and then the bed dipped as he sat down beside me. Not too close, but there. "Um," he added. "Why are you crying?"

"I don't know," I sniffled, still crying, but a few steps down from my end-of-the-world sobbing. I did kind of know — the jealousy, the fear, the contrast between him and me — but I didn't want to go into it, and he didn't think to press me.

"Shh," he said. "There, there." It was super condescending, and he didn't really sound like he meant it. He patted my shoulder, and then kept patting it, mechanically, like he'd read in a book this was how you comfort someone.

I half-laughed again, wiping my eyes with the hem of my jacket. "You just… you really have it all together here," I said.

"Uh-huh, everyone gave me a list and made me buy it all," he said in a matter-of-fact voice.

"But why?" I asked. I wished he'd offer me some water or something, but he didn't. "You don't want Ellie. You were only in the hospital to prove she wasn't yours."

His hand rested on my shoulder, no longer patting it. "…That's true," he said in a low voice, more seriously than I'd heard him before — not the slightly angry upset from my apartment, but with what sounded like actual sincerity and honesty. I kind of ruined the moment of quiet contemplation by sniffling really loudly, one of those huge, wet ones. "Gross," he said.

"So why… all this?" I asked, wiping my nose with the back of my hand.

His thumb stroked my shoulder. It was a strange, intimate gesture. Not something I'd ever had from him before. We'd been on our … date …, and even kissed, but this was different. Thoughtless, his thumb over my shoulder and hand trailing gently down my bicep. It felt kind of romantic, and this was a weird and creepy time for that, so I looked up at him in alarm. He wasn't paying me the slightest bit of attention, staring vaguely ahead of us. "It was different when I saw her," he said.

"Well, obviously," I said. I'd loved you before you were born, but the moment I saw you, it was like the doors to a newer, shinier layer of love burst wide open. I totally bought your father had been struck by the same. You're pretty awesome, why wouldn't he have been?

"I kind of thought I couldn't do that anymore," he said.

"Have kids?" I frowned and wiped my eyes again. Your father is a lot older than me, but not that old. "What, did you have a vasectomy?"

"What? No. Eww. No way I'm lettin' a doctor get anywhere near my junk unless it's a hot —"

You know what, you don't need to hear the rest of that: your father said no. And in the process of protesting, he stopped rubbing my shoulder, which was kind of a relief.

"Then what?"

"Ah… umm…" He looked up at the ceiling, down at his hands, picked at something on his suit… the entire time, I stared at him with everything I had. When it was starting to get really awkward, he broke. "Love."

"What?"

He huffed. "Whatever, nothing."

"No, what do you mean?"

He stood up. "Love, okay? I didn't — think I could feel that way. At all. Anymore. About anything. So that was neat. Whatever. No big deal." He swallowed. "So yeah, I love Ell a lot and I have a lot of cool stuff for her, can I have her? Please? Please?"

Love.

Something about it struck me as horribly sad.

"Don't be ridiculous," I said, instead of being sympathetic to his moment of pure honesty.

"What? I did everything you asked me too —" he pouted.

"How can you not feel love?" As I said it, I remember he had gotten divorced four years ago and maybe still wasn't over it and wanted you to avoid seeing his ex. "No you don't," I added, answering my own question.

"I do love Ell," he insisted.

"You feel love," I said. Suddenly, it all clicked in my head, the pieces of the story he'd been telling. How he'd gotten divorced and hadn't known why, how he'd wanted to work it out with his wife but she'd just told him to go, how four years later he obsessed at it and picked at it and was afraid, terrified, scared enough of facing her and seeing her: seeing her apathy, her dislike of him, or maybe worse: seeing her happy to see him, sincere and platonic with their history and story meaning nothing to her, nothing at all. That something that had mattered so much to him had been nothing to her, not worth keeping or fighting to save or remembering, that he was expected to go to his best friend's wedding and stand opposite her and not think of his own wedding and how happy he'd once been. How he'd convinced himself he didn't believe in love, couldn't feel love, didn't want love, and how meeting you had terrified him and proved that all to be untrue, opened him up again and created a chink that Robin Scherbatsky with a single polite, meaningless smile could smash into a bloody hole. He loved you, so he was afraid of any other love. He couldn't have you and his walls at the same time.

I didn't say any of that, or think it all fancy like that. More like oh, gotcha, he can feel love and his ex is going to be at the wedding and it's just like ten different romcoms!

"I just said I love Ell —" he started to say impatiently, since he also wasn't exactly in the loop of my fancy mental analysis.

"What about your ex-wife?" I was caught up in the emotion of the moment; a couple of stray tears leaked, and I could feel them tracking down my cheeks as I stared up at him, his slack jawed expression, black eyes, the moment he had no idea what to say, or think, or do.

Your father recovered fast. "I haven't talked to her in years," he said.

"You were still in love with her when you broke up, right?" I said.

He clenched his jaw and shrugged.

"That's why you're being such a chickenshit now," I said, sniffling and wiping my eyes again. "You're afraid if you see her at a wedding you're gonna fall for her again."

"No," he said abruptly, with a humorless little laugh, "No, I'm not."

"Because you never stopped?"

"Of course I stopped," he said impatiently, making eye contact with the lamp next to his bed. "I'm not in love with her. I don't love anyone. She doesn't feel anything about me either. I just don't wanna go and deal with her. Because of how much I don't love her." He mustered up some good bravado as he said it, but I was also thinking of the thoughtless way he'd been rubbing my shoulder, totally inappropriate and weird with me, but the sort of thing I'd done with boyfriends, the sort of thing I could imagine him, almost, doing with his mysterious ex-wife: her crying and him making a bad joke, sitting next to her on the bed, rubbing her shoulder, trying to make her smile.

"You love Ellie."

"I love Ellie," he repeated, narrowing his eyes.

"So you love your ex-wife."

"That's not how it works," he complaining. Which was true, and fair enough, really, except…

"You're afraid of finding out," I said.

"Why do you care?" he snapped, suddenly.

I didn't have an answer to that. I really didn't. I looked up at him stupidly, your coat in my lap, my wet fingers clenching the edges of his mattress, his expensive sheets soft to the touch. Why did I care? I didn't. I mean, I wanted to know. I felt invested in this drama, which didn't ultimately effect me and could therefore simply be fun, something to think about besides you. (Not that you're not the best, sweetie!) But there was more to it than just the excitement of melodrama, somehow. More than just a fun story.

"It makes you more of an actual human," I said finally, not sure I was articulating it correctly. To know he had feelings beyond hitting on girls like me and the novelty of you and douchebaggery, to know he had things he was sad about and even annoyed about, that he didn't just exist in a smug, intrusive universe, complaining my entire pregnancy only to upend the show with your birth. I wanted him to be a human. I didn't like him, but I was interested by him.

I wanted to like him, I was beginning to realize, back then, sitting and half-crying on his bed. I wanted him to be part of your life like my father wasn't in mind, and I didn't want to do it with grit teeth.

He seemed taken aback. "What, me being pathetic makes me more human?"

"That's kind of what love is," I said, blinking out a couple stray tears.

He looked at me, and then towards the door, probably thinking but I still don't want to go.

"Go," I said, before he could come up with an excuse. "Go to the wedding. If you're not in love with her, it won't even be a big deal," I couldn't resist saying, probably kind of obnoxiously, "and if something does happen… I'll be here. You can even use me as an excuse."

He frowned. "What, hey, Robin, good to see ya, but I'm kinda on a deadline — there's already a girl at my place?"

I didn't quite make the connection just then, but that meant he was totally already past just saying hi and onto mentally planning a big romantic reunion scene. Your dad talks tough; don't believe him. "Oh, you know Ellie's mom? She's out drinking and partying and being crazy and I have to pick up Ell from her evil trampy clutches," I said, eyes narrowed at him as I did, because I was still super mad he'd implied that was the backstory he'd thought up for me. "But only if it goes bad and you need an escape. And since you're totally secretly pining for Robin —" I didn't know it was Robin Scherbatsky, local celebrity, yet — "you'll be too busy asking her for one more chance or whatever to need it."

He smiled a little sheepishly, but the look changed. He almost looked kind of… happy with me? It was a first, I wasn't sure.

"Now go," I said, flopping back onto his fancy bed with the oh-so-soft bedding. I'd been here before — I mean, I'd seen it on our date, on a tour of the apartment — but I hadn't appreciated it last time. Because it was a quick tour. No other reason.

"Hey. Hey. You can't sleep —"

"Don't you dare," I interrupted. "If I have to stay here and watch my baby while you're winning your breakup or your ex back, I'm doing it on Egyptian cotton."

"You're getting snot all over my duvet," he whined.

"Shove it," I muttered, thinking: I'll rest here for a few minutes, until I'm sure he's gone, and then I'll take you and go home. I'll set my phone's alarm in a second.

My eyes were closed (I was two and a half minutes away from sleeping for fourteen hours), but I didn't hear him walking away. "Barney," I said as dangerously as I could while half asleep, "go get the freaking girl."

He laughed softly. "You know, for a trampy alcoholic party girl," he said, as I heard him start to walk out the door, "you're alright."