A/N: Hi guys. Just wanted to correct a mistake I made last chapter. I had forgotten that Lily and Marshall were leaving the apartment in Last Forever in preparation for their third child so discard that. Let's just pretend that it all happened in their new home… sorry about that.

Special shout-out to IwatchwaytoomuchTV for being my first reviewer and for sending me a lovely message about the first chapter!

How My Daughter Changed Me

By ConsultingTimeLordIn221B

Chapter 2 – Fortress of Babytude

As Barney entered his Manhattan apartment, he breathed a sigh of relief. Despite his bachelor days being over, he still felt a wave of calmness rush over him, especially since she was no longer staying here with him.

He pushed thoughts of Ellie's mother from his head though and looked down at his daughter. She had fallen asleep during the taxi ride, much to his relief. He had hardly slept in the year since she had been born, given that he was forced to play both roles as a parent.

"Looks like that's my future," he said with a grunt. "Three in the morning feedings and pacifiers."

One look at Ellie quelled his bitterness though. Sure, he might not enjoy being a father all of the time. Yes, he missed not having a constant "babe repellant" that shot projectile from both ends. But at the end of the day, she was his. He still could not get over how beautiful she was.

Walking to his fridge, he pulled out a bottle for her evening feeding. Stirring her awake gradually was never a fun experience but he knew that if continued to sleep, he would never be able to put her down again. Gradually she awoke and he began rocking her back and forth on the balls of his feet.

"It's been a hell of a day, hasn't it?" he murmured to his little girl. "This is better now though, right? No more screaming and yelling… no more strange men coming at all hours of the night with mo –" He hesitated momentarily.

"With mommy," he finally finished. "It's for the best. I'm sure you'll understand when you're older that the custody agreement was done with your best interests at heart. And besides, now we're free!" He smiled down at the gurgling baby. "And our life together is going to be legen – wait for it – oh, who am I kidding? You're always waiting for it – DARY! Legendary!"

"Looks like you were hungry," remarked Barney, noticing that the bottle was practically empty. Ellie started fussing again. "Okay, okay."

Throwing a towel over his shoulder, he looked Ellie in the eye.

"I swear Ellie, I love you to the end of the Earth but if I start burping you and you even think of spitting up on this Italian –"

Without even a slight pat on the back, everything came back up again and landed all down Barney's front. He closed his eyes with a grimace. Much to his chagrin, he was certain he heard her gurgling in amusement.

"Oh, you think this is funny do you? You think you can pull this on your old man? You think – son of a bitch, I'm talking to an infant." Another gurgle. "Okay, I think you've been sorted for tonight. Time for bed."

Walking to the only other room in the house, the room that he once used solely for suits, he laid Ellie down on her changing table to get her sorted for bed. Once all was said and done and he cleaned her up, he gently laid her down and within the moment it took him to turn her monitor on and turn back around to glance at her, she was out cold.

"Finally," he breathed, relieved. About to retreat to his room, he heard a knock on the door. Barney cursed under his breath.

Walking to the door, he swung it open to find Ted and Marshall standing there.

"Can I help you?"

Ted opened his mouth to respond but as his gaze lowered to Barney's front, he smirked. It was Marshall who responded though.

"So you Vomit-Suited Up. That's a new one."

"Ha, ha," snorted Barney, undoing his tie. "What do you want?"

"Just came to see how you were doing," replied Ted, as he and Marshall sidestepped Barney and entered the apartment.

"Tracy or Lily?" Barney asked, referring to which one sent them here.

"Both," they replied, as they looked around.

"Don't you think you should, I don't know… baby proof a bit?" suggested Ted, eyeing the Stormtrooper.

"I didn't let you in so you could criticize my awesomeness."

"First of all," said Marshall, "we could've gotten in regardless of if you had 'let us'. Look at me." Ted smirked. "Secondly, it may be awesome now but the second Ellie starts running and that thing comes tumbling down, you're going to be singing a different tune."

"Thanks for the advice Lily."

Marshall rolled his eyes. "Care to change? The sight of your daughter's sick, though it brings out your eyes, is making me feel sick."

"Geez Marshall, if you wanted me to take off my clothes, all you had to do was ask." In one fell swoop, he took off his jacket and dress shirt, leaving himself shirtless. Ted and Marshall looked at him in disbelief. "Don't look too long boys, I'll start to wonder if perhaps your wives should be more than a little bit concerned about our friendship."

"Oh, they passed 'a little bit' quite some time ago."

"So," said Barney, tossing his clothes and collapsing on the sofa. "What will it take me saying to convince you that I'm fine so that you can be on your merry way back home to your respective families?"

Ted and Marshall exchanged a look and sat down.

"It's time we had The Talk," said Ted seriously.

"Noooo, I don't want to have The Talk!" moaned Barney, stomping his feet.

"Are you sure this guy is a father?" Marshall asked Ted seriously.

Barney picked up his vomited-on shirt and threw it at Marshall's face.

"Son-of-a-bitch!"

"Quiet, I just got Ellie down!"

"Would you two calm down?" sighed Ted. Marshall fell silent. "Seriously dude, what's going on with you?"

"Nothing," demanded Barney. "What could be going on? You know me, same old legen – wait for it – dary life."

"You look like you haven't slept for this past year."

"What? These bags? Don't let them fool you, they're not here to stay."

"Is this about Robin coming around?" asked Marshall.

"What makes you ask that?" asked Barney, twitching.

"Because you did that twitchy thing like you did earlier before you ran off to the bathroom," replied Marshall, pointing at Barney's eye.

"Are you still in love with Robin?"

"NO!" Barney closed his eyes fearfully. When no cry came from the bedroom, he exhaled relieved. "Drop it guys."

"Dude, you know you can talk to us. It isn't healthy for you to –"

"Seriously, I'm fine. Drop it." Barney no longer was forcing the fake smile and based on the looks on Ted and Marshall's faces, they could tell he was about ready to snap.

"Are you sure you don't want to talk?" asked Ted uncertainly.

"Ted, if I wanted to talk I would have grown a vagina years ago."

"To be honest Barney, I'm not sure that's entirely –"

"Goodnight Ted and Marshall," said Barney impatiently, standing up and walking to the door. He opened it and waited. "You can report back to your lovely wives – who under separate circumstances I would've tapped that – that I am perfectly fine."

"Are you going to pretend that he didn't just say that?" asked Marshall.

"Dude, I've been blocking out ninety percent of what he says about my significant others for the past two decades."

"Yes, yes, Barney's a pig. Nighty night." He slammed the door behind them and with a slight spin, collapsed on the sofa and fell asleep.

BRINGGG!

Rubbing his heavy eyes, Barney woke up and looked at the clock. Eleven on a Sunday morning. He hadn't slept this long since… ever.

BRINGGG!

"I'm coming, I'm coming. You'll wake the baby," Barney muttered, running a hand through his already messy hair. Without thinking to look who it was, he opened the door only to come face-to-face with none other than Robin, herself.

Momentarily stunned, neither one of them said a thing as they took the other in. The last time Robin had come to his apartment, they had still been married. Given the current circumstances, Barney wondered if he still had not woken up.

"I'm sorry, did I wake you?" she asked, looking away from his bare chest uncomfortably. He cleared his throat unnecessarily.

"It's fine," he said not confirming or denying her question. "Uh, do you want to come in?"

"If you want me to…"

"Scherbatsky, I'm pretty sure that no guy in history has told you what he wants you to do and has kept his balls intact. You obviously came here for a reason so just come in or feel free to loiter on my threshold."

Surprised by his sudden outburst, she walked around him and wandered aimlessly towards the kitchen. She looked down at the floor.

"Wild night?"

"Oh, yeah. I've swapped out girls who vomit after consuming too much booze for a girl who can't handle her formula." He thought that he noticed Robin's upper lip twitch slightly but couldn't be certain if it was just the lighting.

"Just surprised, is all," Robin replied, somewhat bitterly. "I'm used to seeing bimbos shuffled out of here at this point and given your behavior at Marshall and Lily's moving out Halloween party –"

"Is that why you came here?" said Barney incredulously. "To try and make me feel guilty for that night? I'm sorry Scherbatsky, should I have shown you more tact?"

"Who tries to pick up easy women in front of their ex-wife?"

"I don't know, why don't you ask Ted? After all, he's your go-to guy, right?"

There was dead silence in the apartment. Finally, the bitter words that they hadn't confronted each other about were starting to spill out.

"So that's it, is it?" Robin said, blinking. "That's always been it. After all that time, you still think I love Ted."

"Don't you?"

"That's inconsequential Barney! I married you! I broke all my rules and married you because I loved you and was ready to devote the rest of my life to you!"

Because I loved you.

"And now?"

"And now?" she sighed. "Now, I'm trying to pick up the pieces and figure out where I belong in the mess that I made of my life when I left. And I suppose, in some ways, that starts here, in this apartment."

"The mess you made of your life," said Barney flatly. He picked up his shirt, jacket, and tie from the floor and threw it down the chute. He didn't need it and had no desire to attempt to salvage it. "Yeah, I suppose that does come back to me seeing as I'm the common denominator in your messes."

Robin didn't say anything but sat down and ran her hands through her hair.

"I regret a lot of things Barney," she said, vulnerably. "A lot of things I wish I could change. Marrying you isn't one of them."

He had to admit that he was surprised to hear her say that. He didn't know of a single person who he had been with who did not ultimately regret their decision to be with him.

"Same here," he said, solemnly. He sat down next to her.

"The main reason I came here today though Barney was because… I'm fairly certain I'm here to stay this time. I'm not looking to uproot my life anymore. Like Lily said, it's not fair. Especially not to you."

"To me? Why me in particular?" he asked, getting up and walking to the kitchen. He couldn't be next to Robin too long without feeling out of place. The realization of that alone hurt him, especially when he remembered that there was a time that being away from her hurt him.

"Don't make this difficult Barney."

Wrong thing to say.

"Don't make this… difficult for you?" Barney gaped at her. Breathing deeply, he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Okay Robin," he said, throwing her by using her first name. "I'll try and make this easy and concise by filling you in on all that you've missed."

"Since you appeared out of the blue at MacLaren's on Ted and Tracy's wedding night, a hell of a lot has changed. But I'm sure they told you that last night when you gatecrashed. What I didn't give Marshall a chance to tell you though is how my life has changed."

"Scherbatsky, my life has been a wild tail-spin since our divorce. Do you think I wanted to throw myself back out there at meaningless sluts and bimbos when I knew what I wanted but couldn't have?"

"I thought you said –"

"Stop it," Barney hissed, finally having enough. "Just. Once. Scherbatsky. Just once, I'm going to dare enough and put my balls on the line to tell you to shut the hell up and let me talk." She fell silent.

"I'm sorry if my attempt at picking up other women offended you that night but that was the only thing I could do. It's the only thing I knew how to do other than love you and since I couldn't do that anymore, I didn't really see many other options."

"So I picked up where I left off. And remarkably, somewhere along the way I ended up having a perfect month. Until that perfect month ended with what I thought would be the least perfect news of my life."

"Number thirty one was pregnant. Pregnant. With my child. And in front of that very long line of people who thought I couldn't handle being a father was yours truly. So I kept doing my thing, expecting that if I picked up enough girls, in nine months nothing would change."

"But it did. That night. Oh, man that night when I went into the emergency room and that nurse came out, I was ready to bolt and had it not been for Ted, Marshall, and Lily, I probably would have. But then I met her and held her for the first time."

"'You are the love of my life. Everything I have and everything I am is yours, forever.' Words I never thought I would say to anyone. But to her… to Ellie it was the most natural promise in the world. It was the second promise I made that I knew I could keep, but more on that later."

"I got sole custody of her. That's where I came from with her yesterday. The judge, believe it or not, ruled in my favor. I guess when he took one look at her mother's job and the company she kept, it wasn't too hard of a decision."

"I didn't want any of this for her, Scherbatsky, and I would certainly be lying to you if I said that I had wanted any of this for myself. But I promised you… when I told you the truth about the necklace that I would always be honest by you. And I kept my word. I was honest with you and I let you go because I knew if I didn't, you'd hate me for it but no more than I would hate myself for breaking my most important vow."

"I didn't want any of this," Barney repeated. "This past year, none of it, let alone this conversation. But believe it or not… I suppose when it really came down to it, all of it, especially Ellie's birth, was what I truly needed."

Robin sat there in stunned silence, staring up at the man who she never thought would become this. Finally, she broke her silence. She took his hand.

"There may have been a line of people, including yourself, telling you that you couldn't be a father, Barney," she said, softly. He stared back at her. "But as far as I'm concerned, there's not a doubt in my mind that you're not only the father Ellie needs but the one that she deserves."

Barney swallowed.

"Thanks Scherbatsky," he said, quietly.

All of a sudden there was a wail from the nursery and he immediately withdrew his hand from hers.

"Hold on." He left the room momentarily and when he came back, he was with a bleary eyed Ellie. Hesitantly, he walked over to Robin.

"I know you're not a fan of –"

"Can I hold her?" Robin asked, nervously. Barney cracked a small smile.

"Of course." He handed the infant over to Robin. "But be warned – when she smiles, she brightens up anyone's day."

As if on cue, the baby gave Robin a toothless grin and Robin beamed back at her.

"Just like her old man."

A/N: I'm actually quite proud of this chapter, especially since I finished it after 2am. Believe it or not, some good things do happen after that time! Please give me some much-appreciated feedback!