A/N: This is my very first Parks and Rec fic, and I'm really excited about it. Parks is my absolute favorite show ever, and Ben and Leslie are probably my favorite characters on any show ever, so this was super fun to write, and I'm excited to write these next chapters. I've been watching Parks since the very first episode, and I'm not even close to ready for it to end, but this fic is part of my goodbye to this wonderful show. Please enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Parks and Recreation.

Ben walked through a set of double doors into a city hall smaller than the one where he had spent the past six months. One glance at the plain, cream-colored walls, interrupted here and there by a plaque or a portrait, told Ben that this new city was very different from Pawnee. No murals depicting Native American atrocities or town tragedies adorned the walls. The town seal that was visible in various locations was a small artistic rendering of the façade of the town hall, rather than the two men of Pawnee's seal, one post-buffalo slaughter and another chopping down every tree in sight. This town seemed completely normal. And Ben found that he couldn't take even a small degree of pleasure in that fact.

He sighed quietly to himself and thought back to his last day in the city that he might even have considered his home.

Chris had just been appointed city manager, and he had wanted Ben to stay on and become assistant city manager, but the city council had been adamant that the previous assistant city manager retain his position, at least for a while. So Ben knew he had to head back to Indianapolis.

He had kept the fact that he was leaving Pawnee from his friends in the Parks Department for as long as he could. It wasn't until his last day in Pawnee that he actually worked up the courage to grab Leslie in the hallway and confess to her that he wasn't going to be back the next day.

Leslie had looked crushed as the meaning of Ben's announcement washed over her. She had stared at him, her always smiling face falling and what Ben thought might have been tears coming to her eyes. "Oh," she'd said, quietly. And then she had raced off and left Ben to go find the rest of the department and tell them the news.

Tom had clapped him on the back and told him that he was sorry to see him go, even though he was a huge nerd. Ron and Donna had frowned and said things would be different without him around. Even April had seemed kind of sad when Ben dropped by the shoeshine stand to tell her and Andy.

That night he had sullenly attended Andy and April's party/secret wedding. In any other town he wouldn't have bothered to come to something like this. He was moving on, and who knew if he was ever going to see these people again; why was he supposed to care about them? But this was Pawnee, and that made it different. These people were some of the best friends he'd had in a long time, and he was really going to miss them.

He had barely seen Leslie for most of the night as she ran around trying to stop Andy and April from "throwing their lives away". But Ben could see that it was a little more than just concern for Andy and April that was keeping Leslie running around. Every so often, when she thought Ben wasn't looking, she had glanced over at him and frowned, even her eyes looking sad.

Finally, after April and Andy got married, Leslie disapproving, but not stopping them, Leslie had walked over to Ben and asked him to come with her away from the crowd of Pawneans dancing and celebrating Andy and April.

Leslie had stopped in the next room and bent over to grab something out of a bag sitting beside a sofa. She had gestured for him to sit down, which he had, and then she had handed him the object she had gotten from the bag.

It was a scrapbook that Leslie had evidently put together that day. Ben had flipped through the pages quickly, his eyes wide. There were pictures from the Freddy Spaghetti concert back when he had first come to Pawnee. He saw Leslie's ID badge from the shutdown that labeled her as essential and flyers from the movie screening of Twilight in the park and the Chamber of Commerce where Leslie had made her brilliant presentation, despite being delirious with the flu. Ben spotted numerous pictures and what looked like a radio transcript from his stint as "Ben Wyatt: Human Disaster." And, of course, there were several pages covering just the Harvest Festival. Ben stopped on one of the last pictures in the album and smiled softly. He and Leslie were leaning over the railing around Li'l Sebastian's pen at the Harvest Festival, Ben wearing his "I met Li'l Sebastian at the Pawnee Harvest Festival" shirt that had been sitting in his half-packed suitcase back at the Pawnee Super Sweets Motel. Ben was grinning hugely at Leslie, probably just having lied to her that he totally understood the big deal about Li'l Sebastian, and Leslie was staring back at him with a matching smile. The famous mini horse was in the foreground, and Ben couldn't help but think that this picture was everything he loved about Pawnee. It was a town with it's own weird quirks and individuality, represented by the fame of the small horse, and it was a town that had Leslie Knope, a woman who in just a few short months had become incredibly important to him.

"I didn't really have time to make it that nice," she had said shyly, evidently worried that Ben wasn't going to like it, "but I had to do something."

Ben had looked up and shook his head, his mouth open slightly. "This is the greatest present I've ever gotten," he had said, and he had meant it.

He had stood up, leaving the album open on the sofa, and pulled Leslie into a hug.

"I'm really going to miss Pawnee," he had said as they broke apart.

Leslie had given him a half smile. "Pawnee's really going to miss you."

Both of them understood that they weren't really talking about Pawnee.

Ben had shaken hands with Ron, Tom, and Jerry and had been pulled into bear hugs by Andy and Chris, who had literally never been more upset about anything in his entire life. April had hugged him so quickly that he was half convinced that he had only imagined it happening, and then he had been left at the door with just Leslie.

He had fought back the urge to kiss the beautiful now-former coworker in front of him as she looked up at him with her big, sad eyes. Nothing could happen between the two of them. He was going to Indianapolis and then on to another city and another and another. It just wouldn't work.

"You better come back and visit," Leslie had said, blinking rapidly.

"I will. I promise," Ben had replied. He had told department directors and workers that he had befriended in towns all over Indiana that he would try to come back and visit, but this promise to Leslie was the only one he had ever made and meant.

He had hugged his partner in crime again and shot their finger pistol handshake at her one last time. She had responded, making gun noises and laughing like she always did. Ben had pretended not to notice the tear slowly making its way down her cheek.

And then he had left, the beautiful scrapbook under his arm as a tear of his own dripped down his nose.

And here he was a few days later in Richmond, Indiana, a town smaller than Pawnee and in much less desperate straits than Sweetums-dominated city. Four to six weeks was the time frame for this job. Ben hoped it wouldn't be too terrible.

He had a new partner, since Chris was back being city manager in Pawnee. The new man's name was Martin, and Ben thought he seemed okay, if anything, much more normal than Chris, not that that was hard. Martin had an good auditing record and hadn't brought up Ice Town on the drive in, so Ben figured things would go well with them working together.

The Richmond city manager met them in the building's lobby and proceeded to show them around City Hall. He and Martin met town employees from every department, and for Ben it was business as usual. Most of the workers ranged from apathetic to unhappy about their jobs, just like those at nearly every other Indiana town Ben had visited. Every so often, Ben and Martin met an employee who seemed to actually care about his or her department and who seemed hostile to the Indianapolis auditors coming into their government. Ben usually would have been annoyed by something like this, since it wasn't his fault that their town was in debt, but after Pawnee and one particular blonde public servant who had called him a jerk and told him that a town was made up of real people with real feelings, he looked on these more enthusiastic government employees with a new respect.

Their last stop was the Richmond Parks and Recreation Department. Ben took a deep breath as he and Martin followed the city manager inside. Martin seemed to notice Ben's uneasiness as he glanced at Ben curiously.

"I spent a lot of time with Parks and Rec in my last town," Ben explained briefly, leaving out just how invested he had been in Pawnee's Parks Department and how much that group of people, one in particular, had meant to him.

Martin nodded and turned back to the employees they were about to meet.

The department director was a serious looking man named John Peterson who had a mustache that would rival Ron Swanson's. He gave Ben a firm handshake and said that he hoped they could come to some sort of agreement that could get the town back on its feet without having to cut too much of the department. This man was obviously not a Ron Swanson-Libertarian, but Ben noted that the handful of other employees in the small office seemed to look up to their boss with respect. Even the bored-looking assistant with her eyes glued to a computer screen glanced up as the director spoke. Ben found that he instantly respected the other man too.

As the city manager excused himself so Ben and Martin could get to work, a woman entering the department's central area caught his eye. She was relatively tall with dark brown hair, and she was carrying a stack of papers, which she unceremoniously dropped on the assistant's desk before hurrying over to greet Ben and Martin.

"Bridgette Evans," the woman said, extending her hand to Ben enthusiastically. "Deputy Director."

"Ben Wyatt," he replied, the serious expression he had adopted faltering slightly as Ms. Evans introduced herself as Deputy Director. He wished for the millionth time that he was back in a different Parks Department with a different Deputy Director.

"Is there somewhere we can all go to talk?" Martin asked Mr. Peterson who nodded and showed he and Ben into their conference room.

Martin and Ben began to work into a rhythm, Ben handling the numbers and Martin doing more of the explaining. Mr. Peterson seemed very receptive to what Martin told him, nodding and frowning, glancing at his worried looking workers outside the glass-walled room every few minutes. Ms. Evans on the other hand seemed extremely enthusiastic and eager to please, but after the fifth time she interrupted the department director, Ben figured out that she was really out for John's job. John seemed more annoyed with her than threatened, rolling his eyes very subtly as she interrupted him for the sixth time. Ms. Evans suggested several workers in their department that could be cut as John ignored her ideas and offered his own budget solutions that didn't require any employees to be fired.

Ms. Evans didn't seem to have any attachments to the workers in her department. In fact, she didn't seem to care about anyone in the Richmond city government besides herself. Ben thought to himself that Bridgette Evans was the person Leslie Knope would have been if she had cared more about power and position and less about being kind and loyal and dedicated to her coworkers and to the public. Ben knew he really wasn't going to get along well with Ms. Evans.

He still shook her hand as they finished up, and he and Martin left the department and headed back to the city manager's office where they had set up their laptops and supplies.

"That Evans lady's a piece of work," Martin said casually as they walked down the hallway.

Ben grinned in reply. "Yeah, really. I was about to ask her to leave to we could talk to just John and get some real work done."

Martin laughed appreciatively.

Ben was pleased that his new partner wasn't going to take any crap from this deputy director or from anyone else. It was nice to have someone to help him deliver the bad news for a change.

Ben and Martin met with some other employees and poured over the Richmond town budget for a few more hours until five o'clock finally came. The auditing team decided to go grab a bite to eat at a local burger joint recommended to them by the city manager.

"So, you were in Pawnee before this, right?" Martin asked conversationally after they ordered.

Ben nodded. "Yup, Pawnee. Pretty interesting place."

Martin laughed. "I'll say. Is it really half infested with raccoons?"

Ben grinned almost fondly at the mention of Pawnee's town menaces. "Yeah, the raccoons have their own part of the town, and the people have the rest of it."

Martin shook his head, disbelievingly. "A buddy of mine drove through there once. He said he tried to stop and get a bottle of water at a gas station, and he couldn't find one that wasn't filled with sugar."

Ben smiled wider. "The Sweetums Corporation basically owns the place. It actually owned the hotel I lived at for the six months I was there. The Pawnee Super Sweets," Ben recalled.

Martin took a drink from his glass of no-sugar-added regular Richmond water. "Wow, six months. That's a long time for an auditor."

"Well, the town was doing really badly when we got there. We actually had to shut the whole city government down for three months," Ben explained. "And then the Deputy Director of the Parks Department had this great idea to bring back the Pawnee Harvest Festival, and so Chris and I stayed to help out. It was a huge success, and now the town's back on it's feet and thriving."

"And Chris is still there, right?" Martin asked.

Ben nodded. "Yeah, he's the temporary city manager, though I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up staying there permanently."

"You said the Deputy Director of the Parks Department had that Harvest Festival idea?" Martin asked, clarifying. "Must be better than our Bridgette Evans here."

Ben's face lit up instantly. "Absolutely! Leslie was amazing. The greatest public servant I've ever met. I've never seen anyone work so hard or care so much. She was really inspiring. Nothing like Ms. Evans." Or like anyone else here or in any other town in Indiana for that matter, Ben added to himself.

The conversation turned to the Richmond town budget and the work they were going to have to do as their burgers arrived.

They made it back to the hotel by seven, and Ben said good night to Martin and headed back to his room. He sighed slightly at his partially unpacked suitcase that contained all of his possessions as he set his laptop down on the table on the side of the room. He was certain this hotel would be better than the Pawnee Super Sweets, but he still wished he were back in that weird little town where he had felt at home.

He sighed and opened his laptop to check his email. He registered that he had a few emails from Richmond employees and from his boss in Indianapolis, but he ignored them in favor of one from an email address that he knew well because of the sheer quantity of emails he had received from the sender in the past six months. Leslie.

He opened it and found a message which included numerous words in all caps, lots of exclamation points, and an attachment. Ben grinned hugely and began to read.

HEY BEN!

I know today's the day you started over in Richmond, so I just wanted to say that I hope your first day went AMAZING and that you have just as great a time there as you did in Pawnee (I know this is impossible since Pawnee is the greatest town in America and Richmond SUCKS, but all you can do is be positive and try to look for things in Richmond that aren't completely awful or that remind you of Pawnee!). You'll have to let me know how things are going and how your new partner is. Chis has been as close to inconsolable as I think Chris Trager can be, which is to say that he's been exercising constantly in his office as he tries to avoid thinking about you auditing towns without him and not living in Pawnee anymore. He told me that he's been doing something called "sleep running" to try to keep his body focused on physical activity instead of feelings even when he's not awake. I don't know; it's weird.

Things aren't quite back to normal here. Andy and April are still married (somehow!) and they're still off on their honeymoon at Andy's friend Burly's family lakehouse. They sent us a video a couple days ago, and apparently everything's okay. I'm pretty surprised, but maybe they'll make this work. They ARE really great together, and even though I'm not totally okay with this I am REALLY HAPPY for them! Actually their video gave me a great idea to make one for you, so that's in the attachment!

WE MISS YOU! Write back soon!

Leslie Knope
Deputy Director Pawnee Parks and Recreation Department

Ben couldn't stop smiling as he read through Leslie's message. It was nice to know that Chris missed him, but even nicer to know that Leslie was thinking of him and wanted to tell him how things were going. And Ben honestly really cared.

He clicked the attachment and a new window opened up with a video. Ben pressed the play button and Leslie's face appeared on the screen.

"Hey Ben!" the blonde Deputy Director said enthusiastically, waving at him. "I just wanted to let you know how much we all miss you and show you how things are going here in Pawnee without you."

Ben noticed her face fall slightly as she pointed out that Ben wasn't there.

She quickly turned the camera around to Tom.

"Tom! I'm making a video for Ben! Say hi!"

Tom stared hard at Leslie before finally addressing the camera. "Hey Ben. No one's come in here and said something nerdy in days, and I guess I actually kind of miss that. Weird. But anyway, I was at the Snakehole the other night…"

Ben shook his head, laughing, as Tom launched into a story about a girl he had "almost" picked up at his club.

"Okay, okay, goodbye Tom," Leslie said, finally getting fed up with Tom's self-promotion and walking out to the main area of the department.

"Donna!" she approached the other woman. "I'm making a video for Ben off in Richmond."

Donna glanced up at the camera and gave a partially sincere smile. "Hey Ben, we all miss back here in Pawnee. Especially your girl Leslie here, I'm pretty sure she's mentioned you about 50 times since you left."

"Okay, it hasn't been 50," Leslie said from behind the camera.

Ben's grin grew even wider. It seemed his friend missed him just as much as he missed her.

"Hi Ben! Oh, jeez," came another voice from the video. The camera panned sideways to let Ben see that Jerry had tripped over some cords and spilled his coffee trying to move over to say hi to the camera.

"Come on, Jerry," Leslie said, annoyed. "Be professional."

She turned the camera away from the clumsy man and walked into Ron's office. "Ron, I'm making a video for Ben. Could you say hi?"

"Hello, Ben." Ron stopped and turned back to his desk.

Ben had to laugh. He missed the department director with his policy of the fewer words spoken, the better the conversation.

Leslie left Ron's office and returned to her own. Tom had left, and Leslie was by herself as she turned the camera back around so Ben could see her face.

"I would go get Chris to say hi to you, but I'm kind of afraid of what that would do to him, so I'm just going to leave that for another time." She sighed sadly. "It's really weird here without you, Ben. I mean I know you weren't here for most of the time I've worked for the government, but you really made a place for yourself in Pawnee, and I can't tell you how strange it is coming in to work and knowing that you won't stop by my office to say hi or ask me how our parks projects are going."

Ben felt the exact same way about working in a city hall almost three hours away from Pawnee's.

"But I hope everything's going well out there, and you better keep in touch." She looked as though she might hurt him if he didn't reply to her email immediately. "Miss you, Ben. Go save another town."

The video ended, and Ben was left with a goofy grin on his face and an intense longing to hop in his car and drive as fast as he could back to Pawnee, back to his new home. That was out of the question, but writing Leslie back wasn't, so he clicked reply and began to type.

Leslie! Hey!

It's so great to hear from you! I can't even tell you how much I miss Pawnee. The hotel I'm staying at doesn't look even a little bit sketchy and the town hall doesn't have a single bloody mural. As I write this, I realize that sounds sarcastic, but I'm actually completely serious. Richmond doesn't have nearly as much personality as Pawnee does, and I really miss that.

My new partner, Martin, is a pretty nice guy. He's not as ever-positive as Chris is, but he's got a lot of experience, and I think we're going to work well together. I still miss Chris, of course (you can tell Chris that, I feel like he'd like to hear that), but at least Martin either doesn't know about or has decided not to mention Ice Town, so that's good for me.

The employees here are pretty standard. Most of them don't really care, but there are still a few with some degree of enthusiasm. I used to think those kind of workers were a nuisance, but after hanging around a certain parks department employee I met in Pawnee, I have a new found respect for them. :-) The Parks Department director here reminds me a little of Ron, but he used the word "compromise" as a legitimate suggestion in our meeting today, so clearly it's not that much of a similarity. The Deputy Director is some suck-up, who I'm pretty sure is out for the director's job. I definitely prefer the last Parks deputy director I met to this one, no contest.

Keep me posted on Pawnee news, and thanks so much for the video and the email. They really brightened up my otherwise pretty unexciting day. I really miss all you guys.

Ben

Ben sent the message and sighed, figuring he should go through the rest of his emails. Instead, the other object on the table with his laptop caught his eye: the scrapbook he had received from Leslie on his last night in Pawnee. He had already flipped through it enough times to have closely examined every picture and every scrap of paper at least twice, but Ben closed his computer and picked up the book again anyway, flopping down on the bed and turning to his favorite picture, the one of he and Leslie at the Harvest Festival. It was going to be a long four to six weeks, but at least he knew he had people in a town that had become his home that missed him and cared about him. An email and a video and a scrapbook from Leslie Knope were all he needed to survive out here by himself. He could do this. He would be okay.

A/N: Thanks for reading, and reviews are the best!