Epilogue

He needed to hear it from Barney and Robin and that's why Ted decided to invite the entire gang over that weekend.

It was very short notice but nevertheless Lily, Marshall and the kids were in and Barney said he'd be there as well.

Robin was the only one who didn't reply to his message and he wondered whether this was a good or bad sign.

Maybe his kids had been right and she and Barney had briefly patched things up, but things clearly hadn't worked out if Robin had already dropped off the grid again.

Marshall, Lily and their three kids were the first to arrive and quickly the house erupted in chaos.

Next was Barney, who was almost thirty minutes late.

"Hey, glad you made it." Ted greeted him.

"Hey, there is the big author! Congratulations on the bro code, dude. I hear it's selling like crazy." Marshall greeted Barney as well.

"Have you heard anything from Robin? She didn't reply to my message." Ted asked.

But Lily joined them before Barney could answer, asking where Ellie was.

"Is she already upstairs with the other kids? I didn't see her."

Barney grinned, "she's in Europe."

"Ellie? Or Robin" Was Lily's response.

"What's she doing there?" Marshall asked.

"By herself?" Ted was clearly worried.

"Robin and her are touring through Europe for a month." Barney explained.

"Robin Robin?" Lily's eyes got wide.

"Robin Scherbatsky?"

"Well, technically Robin Stinson…but yeah, Robin Robin." Barney grinned.

"You guys re-married?" Marshall asked shocked.

"And didn't tell us?" Lily was clearly offended.

"She took Ellie to Europe with her?"

"Well…it's a long story." Barney said, hoping he could postpone telling it.

"We want to hear it right now!" Lily grabbed the sleeve of his suit and dragged him into the study.

Barney shrugged, "a few years back Robin and I started to hang out again and she and Ellie really hit it of too, so whenever she was in town she'd spend her time with us…I eventually started working on the Bro Code but promoting it was going to be difficult with being a single dad and Ellie having to go to school so Robin quit the news and started taking care of Ellie for me."

"You convinced her to quit her dream job?" Ted asked.

"No Ted, I didn't convince her to quit anything. She just did it, because she wanted to be a bigger part of Ellie's life."

"Just to be clear, we are talking about the ice-queen Robin Scherbatsky, right?" Lily asked.

"Yes Lily. Anyways, things went really well and then last year Robin wanted to take Ellie to Canada with her to visit her sister for the weekend. Long story short, border control does not take foreigners accompanying minors they aren't related to on flights out of the country lightly. It was a mess and I had to fly in from Los Angeles and pick Ellie up myself. So after that we decided to re-marry and for Robin to start the process of adopting Ellie to prevent stuff like that from happening in the future."

"She adopted Ellie?" Ted asked shocked.

"Yep." Barney nodded, "Ellie officially has a mom now."

"Wow."

"Why didn't you guys invite us to the wedding?" Marshall asked.

"We wanted it to be just the three of us." Barney replied.

"Did you choose Farhampton again?" Lily wondered.

Barney shook his head, "obviously not, that place didn't bring us any luck. No we flew to Hawaii and got married on the beach. It was perfect, just Robin, Ellie and I. They both wore the same white dresses, and Ellie was part of the ceremony…she always yearned to have a mom and so this was a dream come true for her, especially since she'd been a little obsessed with Robin being her mom before."

"Does Ellie call Robin 'mom'?" Ted asked.

Barney nodded, "she does."

"And Robin doesn't mind it?"

"Robin couldn't be happier about it. I think secretly Robin wanted to be Ellie's mother just as bad as Ellie wanted to call her mom."

"I'm speechless." Lily commented.

"Where do you live now? Still in the fortress?"

"Well for now we mostly live in Robin's apartment with the dogs and all, but we spend time at the fortress too. We are in the market for a new apartment, but as it turns out finding one that has everything we want isn't that easy."

"Five dogs?"

"Where are they right now? I mean if Robin is in Europe who is watching the dogs?"

"I am. Duh." Barney gave Ted a funny look.

"What are they doing in Europe?" Marshall asked.

"Ellie's not going back to school for another six weeks and Robin was asked to do a documentary about the top European cities to visit, so we decided that Ellie could go. I'm in the midst of writing my new book, The Playbook, and so it really worked out well, they get to have fun traveling and I have some peace and quiet to write."

"How does that work though, I mean where is Ellie when Robin is working?"

"With her. Robin kind of made her her sidekick and the documentary will feature a lot of things for kids as well. I got to see the footage from London and it's turning out really well. Ellie is having a blast, you should see her excitement every time we see an ice-hockey game and she gets to be on the stadium cam because they zoom in on Robin, but now she's going to be on the news like Robin? She's the happiest kid in the world. And I'm the luckiest guy in the world."

"Wow…that's incredible Barney." Lily drew him in for a hug.

"Yeah, I'm really happy for you." Marshall padded his shoulder.

Ted nodded slowly, "yeah man."

"It took us a while, but we finally got our happy end." Barney grinned.

THE END