Ch.22

Robin sat staring at Barney for what seemed like an eternity. A million thoughts raced through her head as she thought about what was happening.

"You-you want me to marry you? Barney we have only been dating for a month." Robin said, trying to wrap her head around how fast things were moving.

"Well actually we have been dating for over 3 and a half years, if you count all of the time before this, which of course I do." Barney recognized the look on Robin's face as confusion and hard thinking. He stood from his position and crouched down right in front of Robin, grabbing both of her hands in her lap and looking up at her. "Robin, I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I know you want the same thing, this is what we have wanted for the past 11 years now and it just couldn't work because of circumstance but there is no reason it can't work now. I will do everything in my power to make sure that this time we get the happy ending we deserve together. Don't overthink this. Just feel what you want to feel." Barney said as Robin continued to think. She did know that she wanted to be with Barney forever, but it just came up on her so quick. All of a sudden her life could be changing forever, she could be becoming a mother. But she would be becoming a mother to a child she loved put in this world by a man that she has loved for over a decade. What was she doing questioning this. It was a no brainer.

"Yes! Yes, lets get married!" Robin said with tears in her eyes. She leaned down and grabbed Barney's face, planting a huge kiss on him. Barney slipped the ring on to Robin's finger. Robin looked down at it and noticed something.

"Barney, is this my old engagement ring?"

"Yeah, it is. But look." Barney took the ring off of her finger and showed her inside the band. There was a small engraving that said Legendmarried. "I thought it could use a little something. It's a symbol. The old ring symbolizes our history together and the engraving shows how new things are always welcome. There is room for change and that is a good thing." He said with a smile.

"Oh my god Barney I love it!" Robin leaned down and kissed him again. When she pulled away she had another confused look on her face. "Wait, so if you didn't know you were going to propose to me today, why do you have this ring and when did you get it engraved?"

"When we got divorced and you gave me the ring back, I kept it with me at all times. I put it in my little hankie pocket everyday so it was always with me, and in a way it made me feel like you were always with me. Once Ellie was born I would forget sometimes, especially because I wore suits less with her and therefore no hankie pocket, but once we started dating about a month ago I made sure it was with me everyday. So I had it with me here and once I realized that I wanted to ask you to marry me I went with Ted to a jeweler a little ways off the resort to get it engraved."

"You did that today? I was with you the whole day, how did you do that?" Robin asked, confused.

"You fell asleep on the beach for about an hour and a half. We went then. When you woke up we had Lily tell you we went to get a couple drinks."

"So everybody else knows that this is happening tonight?"

"No, just Ted. We actually told Lily we were getting drinks. You know you can't trust her with a secret." Barney said with a small grin.

"Oh my god Barney this is amazing. So, we are really doing this again. We're getting married." Robin said as it finally hit her.

"Yeah but there is no rush. We can make this a long engagement and do it when we're ready. And we are almost 50 so no huge wedding. Something small. If that's okay with you."

"Yeah that is perfect! Just close friends and some family, that's all we need."

"Agreed." Barney said as he sat back down at his seat. They finally took a sip of their champagne. They sat silent for a little just taking in the breathtaking moment. The music in the background, the soft sound of waves crashing on the shore, the smell of fresh beach air, and the palpable feeling of unconditional love that was drifting through the air. It was perfect. Barney stood back up and walked over to Robin, putting his hand out. "May I have this dance?" Robin took his hand and joined him in front of the musicians, where they slowly began to dance to the music. Barney leaned down to kiss Robin. This moment here, for the both of them, was perfect. They stayed like this in silence for a while, until the silence was broken.

"Barney can I ask you something?"

"Yeah baby of course."

"Well, something has kind of been bothering me all day, something you said earlier."

"What is it?" Barney said starting to get worried.

"Its about Angie."

"Oh, Robin I thought I said to just drop it. There is nothing to talk about with her." Barney said, trying to change the conversation.

"Obviously there is or else you wouldn't be trying to avoid the topic. Come on Barney, I am going to be your wife again, we need to be able to communicate with each other."

Barney let out a deep sigh, "Okay fine. What do you want to know?"

"Everything. How you meet, what she was like, you know, just everything."

"Okay, well, Angie was a good friend of Hannah's. Hannah is Ellie's mom. When Ellie was first born I spent a lot of time with Hannah. We tried to make things work between us but it was never going to happen. She hated my guts. Because of this, Angie hated my guts. We were nothing alike and we were always fighting with each other and Hannah just sat back and let it happen. Anyway, about a year after Ellie was born Angie started to notice that Hannah was acting weird. She just wasn't herself. She started drinking and doing drugs. She was not fit to be a mother. Angie came to me to let me know about this. Even though we didn't agree on anything there was still one thing we both cared about more than anything and that was Ellie. So Angie was looking out for Ellie by telling me what was going on with Hannah. Once I saw firsthand what Hannah was turning into I filed for full custody of Ellie, with Angie's help. This, of course got Hannah really mad. Hannah got really high one night and went over to Angie's place. Angie let her in and Hannah just started wailing on her. Beat her up pretty bad. Hannah got arrested and this proved to the courts that she was not able to raise Ellie. After a lot of court dates and paperwork I finally got Ellie to myself when she was around 2 years old. After all of the craziness of the trials Angie helped me a lot with Ellie. She was around all of the time so it just kind of happened. We started dating and it worked for a while. We were happy and she was so good with Ellie. Not too much bothered her but for some reason she was bothered by you. She never met you obviously but it bothered her that I had been married before and that I still had our old pictures in my apartment and stuff. I explained to her that I wasn't getting rid of it, that before we were married we were friends and even after we divorced we never really stopped being friends. I guess she had a right to let this bother her but I wasn't going to just forget about you. One night, the gang was supposed to get back together, and you were going to be there. It was about a year and a half ago. I told Angie this and she flipped. She told me that if I went to hang out with all of you, more specifically you, then it was over between us. Basically she made me choose, and I chose to hangout with you and the gang. Later that night we got into a huge fight. She pretty much trashed my apartment and wouldn't stop screaming. She threw a glass bowl at me, which cut my arm. She felt bad so she came up and tried to apologize, saying she forgave me for going out and she just wanted to forget about it. Can you believe that? She forgave me, like I did something wrong. Meanwhile she cut my arm open with a glass bowl. Anyway that's when I saw Ellie waddle out of her room. Turns out she was awake playing with her toys. That's when I realized that I couldn't have Angie around Ellie. I told her to leave, she resisted at first but ultimately she left. I haven't seen her since, except for when she came by to pick up her stuff but that was it. That's Angie." Barney said as Robin soaked it all in. There was a long silence before Robin responded.

"So I broke you two up?" Robin asked, her voice shaky.

"What? No, she broke us up with the way she acted. She was crazy."

"Yeah but she wouldn't have acted like that if you hadn't of chose me over her."

"It would have came out eventually, you were just the catalyst that's all."

"Oh my god Barney, why did you do that. Why did you let me get in the way of your relationship?" Robin asked, somewhat angrily but also kind of flattered.

"Because you were and always will be far more important to me than her. She couldn't make me choose, it wasn't even a choice. A would have picked you a million times over. I don't regret it for a second." Barney said, his voice growing a little louder to make a point. Robin didn't know what to say, so she didn't say anything. Instead she gave Barney a small smile, tears in her eyes, and laid her head on his chest as the two of them continued to dance, just happy to be in each other's arms.