It was the weekend, but Ben found himself at City Hall anyway. The hum of the fluorescent lights and the occasional groaning of the heating system did little to cut through the comforting silence of City Hall on a Saturday. No Chris, no meetings, and, most importantly, no Leslie.
The afternoon crept in, muted by the heavy snowfall, and so did April, wet and pale from the cold. She said nothing as she peeled off her damp outer layer, hung it, dripping on his office carpet, and sank deeply into the chair next to his small conference table.
"Is there something I can help you with?" He asked, perturbed. She shook her head no, rubbing her damp hair against the roughly clothed chair, and stared out the window.
"Ok, uh… I have work to do, so…" He began, uncertain. She turned towards his desk but avoided eye contact, focusing on the wall behind him.
"I'm not stopping you," she replied, twining her arms around her torso and swiveling back towards the frosty window. He raised his eyebrow and returned to work. She'd done stranger things, he supposed.
They remained this way for a few hours, the only sounds of life coming from his keyboard. April did not move but to place her feet on his conference table, legs crossed, and the occasional twitch.
Ben rose around four o'clock to use the floor's fax machine, sparing her a passing glance. She seemed to be asleep. And shivering. He set his folders down, quietly as to not wake her, took his coat off the hook, and gently covered her with it, admiring how much less terrifying she looked when she was sleeping.
When he returned, twenty minutes and a several angry conversations with the ancient fax machine later, his coat was in a pile on the floor and she was gone.
As was his wallet.
He arrived home that evening to April and Andy happily inhaling their way through a pizza buffet, complete with an untouched box of calzones.
"Hey, Ben! There's beer in the fridge!" Andy exclaimed with all his usual sighed internally, realizing why his wallet had been taken.
"Great. Did it magically appear there?" Ben replied sarcastically. Andy gasped.
"Did it? I don't know, is that possible? No, right?" He looked expectantly at his wife, who replied with a noiseless shrug of her shoulders. Ben cocked his head quizzically at her, and April's eyes met his for the first time that day. The discomfiting look there extinguished all the anger he felt about his stolen wallet.
He went to the refrigerator and smiled slightly when he found a six-pack of his favorite beer chilled and waiting for him. He shamelessly grabbed the whole thing and the box of calzones and made his way to his bedroom, sneaking a final glance at April, tucked under Andy's arm and staring at the wall above the television, her face impassive.
April had always been an enigma to him. Since his arrival to Pawnee, he'd seen her behaviors tilt drastically from selfish and petulant to caring and warm, and the only impetus he could see was Andy. He'd softened her in secret, and she did her best to make sure no one knew how large her capacity for caring was. He felt oddly protective of her, though it was hilariously obvious she didn't need to be protected.
He put his dinner and briefcase down on the tiny desk, saw his wallet sitting in the precise center of his bed and retrieved it, opening it to see he was down thirty dollars. Had April not taken his wallet he wouldn't have beer and calzones, though, so… He could let this one go.
The heavy thud of the front door shutting startled him. He stood to shed his coat and scarf, and was surprised to see April opening his door, eyes downcast. She looked very small in her overlarge t-shirt, men's boxers, wool socks, and glasses. The first time he'd seen her in those glasses she was still half-dreaming, pouring coffee robotically, hair wispy from sleep. Now, though, she was alert, vibrating with tension. Her eyes behind the frames reached his and immediately retreated. She walked past him to the glistening six-pack on the desk and took one, opening it swiftly and taking a large drink. He retrieved his own as she sat cross-legged in the middle of his bed. Ben tried to find a casual way to lean against his closet door.
"April. Are you… Is everything ok?" He softly ventured, treading very carefully, knowing any small misstep could send her running, retreating back behind the steel walls she usually had him on the other side of.
She replied in a voice so small it was difficult to determine it was a voice at all.
"Andy is leaving."
She took a long draw from her bottle and Ben sat next to her, dipping the mattress and wrapping an arm around her was stiff and flinched when he touched her, but she did not move away.
"He's going on tour with Mouse Rat and doesn't want me to go with him. He wants me to stay and help Leslie with the campaign."
A hot vice grasped his windpipe for a frantic moment at the mention of Leslie. He did his best to not tighten his grip on April too much.
She pulled her legs up to her chest and set her chin on her knees. Ben could feel her quivering, but he couldn't tell if it was from the cold, how tightly she was clenched, or tears.
He took a breath to say something and April grasped her limbs closer to her body in response. He wanted to say something to make it better, anything to make it better, but it all sounded so trite in his head and he couldn't bring himself to say anything at all.
The silence stretched out for a long time as April stared viciously at something beyond the wall. It took him a few moments to realize that there must have been more to April's despondency. Andy going on tour wasn't such an enormous tragedy; spending a few weeks apart shouldn't warrant this sort of reaction from the usually stoic April. This thought does not comfort him.
Eventually she stops quivering and her shoulders relax into his hold, and he uses that moment to rise and change quickly into his sleeping attire, his rattier Letters to Cleo shirt and a pair of flannel drawstring pants. He turned off the overhead light, switched on the bedside lamp, and pulled back the covers. Her face remained blank, as if she hadn't noticed his movement.
"April," he coaxed softly. Her head snapped up, startled, and for the first time he'd known her, she looked vulnerable. Younger, without the impenetrable wall she spent so much energy keeping up, and even through her thick frames he could see her eyes shining with tears.
"It's cold. Get under the blanket." He gestured for her to move underneath the thick comforter and she haltingly obliged, stiff and clumsy, with a death grip on her half-gone, now warm beer. He climbed into bed and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, expecting resistance but receiving none. April eventually relaxed again into his shoulder, glasses digging into his chest, prickly legs curled up next to his with her knees on his thighs. He found himself not caring much, and pretended not to notice the mild shaking in her slight shoulders. When she finished her beer and began peeling the label away in long, damp strips, he retrieved another for her. They sat back against the headboard and silently drank until there was no more alcohol left. Not long after, both slipped from their mildly intoxicated stupor into a deep, warm sleep, April tucked safely away underneath Ben's arm with his head resting on hers. The calzones remained uneaten, cold and forgotten.
Ben woke the next morning sprawled across his bed with a God-awful tweak in his neck. Both pillows were strewn across the floor, empty beer bottles littered the aged, brown carpet. Most notably, he was alone.