1. The End

It's not always rational, but people on their wedding day sometimes find themselves panicking about whether they've made the best choice.

April 23, 2044

"I can't go through with this."

"Ellie, what? This wedding is going to be legen—"

"Dad, I'm serious."

Barney tilted his head, brow furrowed. "What's on your mind El?"

In all his years of knowing her — that is, all the years she'd been alive — Barney had never known Ellie Stinson to back out of anything. As a child, this meant watching every Disney movie at least five times until Ellie could sing each song perfectly by heart (with Barney providing backing vocals, of course). As she grew up, this refusal to back down led to several altercations with bullies following which Barney would have to meet with Ellie's principal and desperately try to hide his pride and satisfaction. When she was in college, Ellie's resolve meant overloaded schedules, caffeine-filled all-nighters, and spring breaks spent holed up in her childhood bedroom getting a head start on studying while ignoring Barney's attempts to help her relax.

"What if we've invited too many people?" Ellie had started nervously pacing around the room.

"El."

"What if it's too soon? I mean it's only been, like, a year since we got engaged and—"

"Ellie."

She threw her arms up. "—what if things don't work out? Or mayb—"

"Eleanor Loretta Stinson."

Ellie stopped in her tracks, barefoot, hair disheveled, blazer creased, and diadem in hand. Within seconds Barney was guiding her to the chair in front of the vanity and pouring her a glass of water. "Ellie, look at yourself. You are the best daughter a bro could ever ask for."

He chuckled silently as he remembered his antics on his own wedding day four decades prior. Like a true Stinson, Ellie too had debated at length about whether to wear the amethyst diadem or the aquamarine one. She eventually settled on the latter, but in her current state, Barney was certain she was minutes away from changing her mind again.

"And if your fiancé hurts you, we'll just have Marshall beat him up." For so long, Barney worried that raising a daughter alone would be impossible for someone like him. But Ellie made it so easy that sometimes Barney thought she might as well have been raising herself.

June 12, 2027

It was the first day of summer vacation. Ellie and Barney were seated in front of their giant television to do what they always did at the end of every school year: watch Disney movies and sing along to all of the songs at the top of their lungs. Today, Ellie had selected Mulan 2, the sequel to her favorite movie of all time. Ellie saw herself in Mulan — the loyal daughter, the fierce fighter, the anti-princess princess.

"Daddy, why are they making her wear a dress?"

Each year, Ellie had new questions to ask.

Daddy, why don't they let her fight?

Daddy, how does the dragon talk?

Daddy, what happened to Mulan's dad?

This time around, Ellie's question came minutes before Mulan was to marry Li Shang.

"Daddy, when I get married, I want to wear a suit." Barney smiled and shook his head. Some small part of Barney wondered if Ellie only wanted to wear a suit to simplify matters for him. Barney knew all there was to know about suits, but dresses? Not a chance. Even so, the thought itself of Ellie one day getting married seemed so far away.

Little did Barney know that he and Ellie would eventually launch a women's suit line together. And little did he know that Ellie would wear one of their bestsellers on her wedding day, complete with a thrifted lace corset and a diadem from her mother. Instead, that first day of summer vacation, he simply hoped his daughter would never grow up.

December 21, 2033

"Dad, a friend of mine is throwing a holiday party tonight. Can I go? Maya's mom said she could drop us back home by nine." Back by nine? Barney couldn't remember a single party he'd ever been to that even started to get exciting any time before eleven o'clock.

"Ellie, it's your winter break. You're allowed to stay out later than nine." She spent so much of her time alone, Barney had started wondering if Ellie could remember what the outside world looked like at all.

"No thanks, Dad. I have a project I want to get a head start on." Barney seriously considered telling Ellie he wouldn't let her back into the house any earlier than ten, but he was pretty sure that wouldn't be the mark of good parenting. It just seemed like Ellie always had a reason to stay in, not that there was anything wrong with that. But Barney wasn't sure how much longer Ellie would be able to keep up the constant pressure without burning out. His own hidden agenda was to wedge breaks in for Ellie whenever the opportunity arose. Most recently, he'd gotten her making Thanksgiving dinner, and the time before that he'd convinced her to help put up Halloween decorations. This time, he suggested baking Christmas cookies.

"Sure, Dad. If it makes you happy, I'm in."

Maya's mom did end up dropping Ellie home by nine, but instead of joining Barney in the kitchen, she headed straight to her room and closed the door behind her. Barney hesitated but when Ellie didn't come out after fifteen minutes, he went over to her door and knocked the secret rhythm that only the two of them knew.

"Come in," she said in a muffled voice.

When he opened the door, Barney found Ellie sitting on her bed in the dark, staring out the window by her desk. She had been crying.

"Ellie—"

"Everything's fine. I'm just tired." Barney glanced at his watch. It was barely a quarter past nine. Barney made his way to the side of Ellie's bed and turned on the lamp on the nightstand.

"Ellie, what's wrong?" He was almost certain Ellie would try to find another excuse to get him to leave her alone, but to his surprise, the words just started falling out. From what Barney could make out, Maya's mom had mentioned something about getting all the girls' moms together for a picnic and asked Ellie if her mom would like to join. Ellie mentioned her mom wasn't around, leading Maya's mom to assume Ellie's mother had passed away.

"It's stupid, Dad," Ellie said between the tears. "I'll get over it. Don't worry."

"Ellie," Barney replied with just a hint of exasperation, "worrying about you is pretty much the most important job I have."

"As important as 'being awesome'?" It was a running joke between the two of them that Barney did so many things — lifestyle blogging, suit designing, corporate whistleblowing — that it was easier to just distill it down to being awesome.

But this time, Barney felt the need to clarify: "No, this is more important."

Barney hoped Ellie would one day get to meet her mom and hear her side of the story. But for now, Barney resolved to play the role of multiple parents as best as he could.

June 11, 2038

Last day of high school. Barney was sure it would have sunk in by now, but it definitely had not. In just a few short months, Ellie would head off to college, and Barney's fortress would be defined by solitude once again. While Ellie was at school, Barney had cooked Ellie's favorite meal—congee with stir-fried vegetables. When she walked through the door that afternoon, the comforting scent of home-cooked food immediately put a smile on her face.

"How was your last day?" Barney asked Ellie as she settled down at the dining table.

"It was fine. My girlfriend and I broke up, but there's no hard feelings. This all smells great, by the way." Barney froze. Since when had Ellie started dating? And since when was the topic so casual it could be mentioned in passing at lunch?

"Girlfriend?" Barney asked, eyebrows raised.

"Oh, yeah. Nothing serious. It was just something fun before college." As glad Barney was that his daughter felt comfortable enough to tell him about her relationships, he wondered how absent he had to have been to have missed she had been in a relationship altogether.

"Why have you never mentioned her?"

"You've been so busy working late to prepare for the latest launch," Ellie explained. "I didn't want to bother you." Barney could have sworn he'd had this same conversation dozens of times before, yet they somehow managed to keep having it again and again. Ellie always worried more about him than he'd ever worried about himself. It simultaneously warmed his heart and filled him with an immense guilt.

"Ellie."

"Yeah, Dad?" Ellie said between mouthfuls of congee.

"I always have time for you. Whether it's in the middle of work or in the middle of the night, if you need me, I'm there."

Ellie shrugged. "It's not that big a deal." But it was to Barney. Ellie had spent all her life looking out for both of them—something Barney felt was supposed to be his responsibility alone. When Ellie had a problem, she would almost always ask someone else before turning to Barney, so she could avoid bothering him as much as possible. And when she had important news, she would always wait for a time she thought would be convenient for Barney.

Ellie seemed to sense that the issue hadn't been resolved, so she clarified. "I know you're always going to be there for me, but that doesn't mean you have to drop everything any time I need the smallest thing," she said before adding, "I'm a big girl, Dad. I can handle it." And there it was. Somewhere along the way, Ellie had grown all the way up from the small girl he could hold in one hand to a bold young woman that still had him wrapped around her little finger. Sure, sometimes Barney wished she would come to him with her problems, but Stinsons were known to be fiercely independent. Hell, Barney's own mother had been so independent she was determined to raise her two sons all on her own.

When it mattered most, though, Barney knew she would rely on him.

"I love you, El."

"I love you more, Dad."

April 23, 2044

Ellie was still seated in front of the vanity, and Barney had taken her blazer to iron it one last time before the ceremony. Rita and Mel, Ellie's bridesmaids, had started fixing her hair and makeup. At the same time, Ellie's heart rate was still through the roof, and she'd been eyeing the window for the past fifteen minutes. Barney noticed her attempt to formulate an escape plan, because before he returned her blazer, he grabbed her shoulders, made eye contact with her reflection in the mirror, and attempted one last time to talk her down before the ceremony started.

"What's my one rule?" he asked, fixing the position of the diadem in her hair.

Ellie thought for a moment, "Never wear a brown belt with black shoes?"

"My other one rule," He clarified as he helped her lace up her heels.

"Never pass up a free sample?"

"My other other one rule." Now helping her stand, Barney slipped the freshly-pressed blazer over her arms.

"Always have a fake pair of concert tickets in your pocket in case Aunt Lily invites you to something stupid?" That remark elicited a snicker from Mel.

"No, but definitely don't forget that one either." Barney laughed. He smoothed the fabric of Ellie's eggshell pantsuit and turned her to face him. Then, more seriously, he asked again, "Ellie, what's my oldest one rule?"

It took another moment before it hit her: "New is always better?"

"New is always better," Barney repeated for emphasis. "This might be the end of an era, Ellie, but what's to say the next one won't be just as great?" As much as his past self would have denied it, Barney himself had spent the better part of his life tied to the past, striving to make each night more legendary than the last in some quest to enact revenge and evade regret. But his daughter, the best thing that ever happened to him, had never been part of the plan at all. New didn't have to be grape scotch and unnecessary sequels. Sometimes "new" simply meant letting go and letting time do its thing.

Ellie closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and assessed her reflection one last time. Perhaps her father was right.

Perhaps the end of the aisle wasn't really an end at all.

Author's Note: I've had this story on my mind since 2014, and I'd initially planned for it to be a long-form story centering on Ellie and her mother, one of my favorite original characters who will absolutely make an appearance here. I ultimately decided — in true HIMYM fashion — to write episodic one-shots with a plethora of time jumps. I don't know if I would class this as a "fix it" fic, because everything that happened in the show happens in this story (including the deleted scenes from the finale). Barney and Robin divorce, Tracy dies, Ellie is born, etc. But for me, the story doesn't end there. I have 31 chapters planned out, so we'll see how long it takes me to write them. Happy reading!