A/N: I love this AU, a whole lot, and I feel I should explain that each chapter is a series of important events in a year as I don't have the time nor patience to write a novel here. So, yeah, it's like a series of connected events that define their relationship over the years!

Andy's the kind of kid that likes to point out things. Anything, really, and he likes to point at it, yell really loudly about it, and then smile at everyone because they apparently don't get how awesome it is that this rest stop is eighty-four miles away. He calls out every time it's a holiday, like no one else knew it was coming, and he'll always celebrate Christmas for pointing out how many parts, opposable joints, and colors his new action figures have and why that's way cooler than the ones with fewer. So, really, when he told April they'd been friends for a whole year - since basically forever - he didn't think much of it.

A full year, and somehow April doesn't stop playing and hanging out. Which is weird, because he's learned a lot about her. Probably more than any of his friends, to the point where they go to each others' houses all the time and at some point a ten-year old and seven-year old playing should be weird but it never is. It only makes sense that she's the best, because all she ever wants to do is dig up stuff. Worms, roots of trees, earthen mysteries that neither are really ready to see, or just dirt for the sake of getting dirty. That made her way better than everyone else right off the bat, and even better was figuring out she was really only two years and a few months younger than him. That mostly bothered her brother, it seemed, and for some reason his brothers were starting to think it was less cute and more weird.

But, really, that just fit their whole friendship.

The fact that she liked to wear, or at least wore them all the time, little dumb dresses that made her look like a baby and those same, tiny shoes and continually dug around in the mud made so much sense to him. It basically made the most sense in the world, because despite everything she tries to do with her whole evil shtick she's always laughing in the dirt with him or enjoying the same dumb jokes he tells all the time. Everytime she got to wear pants - and Andy gave her a little pair of overalls he used to wear for a Christmas gift - it was like watching someone in a new body. She rolled in mud, grabbed every stray leaf and twig, and they had intense wrestling matches (never too intense, Andy knows just how much bigger he is than her which is a lot) all day. It was awesome. On the same note, since she was tiny in comparison, April rarely wore those overalls just because they were so huge on her, which was hilarious to him in its own way.

When the winter months rolled through, the snows of Pawnee shocked her. Not really understanding how she'd never seen snow before, she tried to explain to him that they didn't really have a lot of snow in Florida. He wasn't even entirely sure where that was, so Andy just assumes it's some mythical place she made up in her head. But April doesn't really have imaginary friends, or if she does he's never met any of them. With the frost of a mostly mild winter, Christmas hits and they have the absolute best time. Aaron and Alex help him figure out a present, and really he thinks the overalls the whole time but they insist on something else, so in the end he just sticks with his gut instincts and gives her the strangely large denim. She seems to like her prettier clothes, but there's sometimes when she runs around in the overalls and they play at farming. Usually April plays the role of a witch harassing him, which should scare him probably but in the end it's all made up (at least he hopes) and it's just funny to watch her try and be scary. April by herself, regular April, is scary enough. Affecting a weird voice and wearing a blanket as a robe just makes her laughable, so Andy tries to stay in character.

As the year passes, Andy wants to get her another present for her birthday but that doesn't really work out as well as the first time. As it turns out, giving April a spider was not the right call. Andy just thought it was cute but she nearly screamed when she opened the little box. He let the spider out the next day. All the while, he got used to going over to her house often. It's not like he had any homework and the stuff he did have was boring anyways.

Her brother, Ben, is twelve and does everything that a twelve-year old boy does, nerds out about, and angsts over with the best of them. Sometimes he seems cool and other times he tries to pretend to be in charge, usually when he actually is after their dad leaves for a few hours but he isn't that much older than Andy. That leads to a lot of funny exchanges between him and April ("Andy can stay here, you don't need to watch me." "Go away, ghosts don't need babysitters.") Ben's a total nerd through and through. Everything in his room screams it - his pile of comic books in the corner, soon turning into boxes and boxes when Andy and April scoured his closet, and the piles of little notebooks filled with weird stories told them everything. They were really confused about the notebooks. Names of Star Trek: The Next Generation characters filled the pages, but Andy didn't remember watching any of these episodes.

Going over to play usually meant hearing Ben watch countless reruns of the show, and the two of them caught quite a few just to make fun of it. They're all boring, but sometimes April reminds him of the Borg in a very scary way before she starts laughing and Andy feels much better.

Sometimes that means Andy stays over to eat, because April doesn't tell him to leave and her dad never kicks him out. He's crazy. It makes all sorts of sense that this is her dad, because he's always grumpy looking but calm unless prodded too hard. Andy's got a way with poking people in just the right way to make them angry at him, something he got good at with his brothers over the years. Stares are shared with April's dad, Ben looking uncomfortable when it happens and, even worse, crumbling when he has to deal with those eyes piercing his very soul. That's what Andy thinks it's like anyways. He's never been very good with words and he's only ten, so he never really worries about it that much.

Sitting at dinner one night with Steven - Mr. Wyatt, he always reminds Andy to call him - and the rest of the family, Andy gets a thought. He's never seen anyone but Mr. Wyatt around. There wasn't a second where he thought about asking April about it, but sticking peas with his fork and chewing rice loudly, because Andy chewed everything loudly, seemed as good a time as any. The long table in their dining room was weird to sit at, April and Ben across from each other and Andy across from Mr. Wyatt. It felt cool, like he was at the head of the table. Trying to work up his courage to say anything, Andy looks at his peas and eats one carefully. It still tastes weird and old. Swallowing it, not wanting to get a glare when he spits this one out, he finally speaks up.

"So, um, sir… is April's mom, uh," Andy swirls his fork through a little rice, noticing April's face fall. "Is April and Ben's mom coming here?"

He sighs. "They're different people, son," Mr. Wyatt takes another large bite of his steak, Andy trying to ignore how good it looks. He's confused by what he means though. "They have two, different mothers."

"Oh," Andy nods. "Cool."

He just had one mom, who was awesome. Then again, he also has five brothers and April only has one. Every day he realizes there's a lot different about them, but she still feels like a cooler friend than most people. But moms... April has two? That doesn't sound too crazy to Andy - one of the kids in his class has two moms - but he doesn't think it's the same thing. Steven, Mr. Wyatt, Andy berates himself in his head, clears his throat like he's practiced this speech.

"Ben's mother was a good woman; would've stayed with her for a long time if she didn't… leave," and Andy sees Ben wince now. He's not smart, but this seems wrong and kind of mean. He swirls his glass and points it lackadaisically towards April. "Then April came around."

Her face doesn't change at all, still stabbing peas and her chicken with exaggerated thudding on the table. When Andy did that his mom told him to stop playing with his food, but Mr. Wyatt didn't seem to really care for better or for worse. Really, that seemed to be his motto. There's a cold, strange silence after that exclamation. Looking over at Ben, just glancing, he gets even more confused by how mean their father's being, especially to April.

"You say that like she's a problem," Ben mumbles.

"What was that?" his father says loudly, much louder than Andy expected.

For a second, no one says anything. April fidgets in her seat, still staring at her food, while the whole atmosphere dies out. Not that hanging out here was ever joyous or particularly fun with her dad around, but he didn't like April going over to his place so Andy figured it'd be just as fun here. For the most part he's right, when it's just them and Ben and it turns out he's not that weird or dumb but it's still kind of hilarious to watch him freak out when April tests how long he can handle her staring at him with her head tilted low like she's going to attack. Ben never lasts very long.

"Nothing," Ben mutters.

"No, speak up. Say it again," Mr. Wyatt almost growls. Andy suddenly notices how angry that all sounds. "Say it to my face, son."

"I said: you make it sound like April's a problem," Ben glares him in the eye and then stands up, throwing his silverware on his plate.

No one says a word after that, Ben slamming his door just a few moments later. April doesn't look up until the noise ends and then briefly glances at Andy, then to her father. He seems to give his daughter what Andy guesses is a feeble attempt at warmth, and all that comes out of it is a bizarre half-smile that dies out before it ever reaches his eyes. For the life of him, Andy's confused and doesn't get why the conversation's going so strangely. Why couldn't they just be nice to each other?

April stands up and puts her fork down, kicking her chair out and walking out of the room without saying a word.

"A bunch of drama queens," Steven grumbles, cutting another bit of his steak and chewing it furtively. "You can go too, son."

He points out towards the foyer with his knife.

Andy stands up, putting his fork down and getting ready to take his plate over to the sink. His mother would kill him if he didn't at least clean his plate off before putting it into the sink to be washed. After all, Alex's job was dishes but everyone had to play their part. Instead, Mr. Wyatt just shook his head.

"Leave it there, I'll take care of it for you," he says with something that isn't really kindness. His voice doesn't seem very capable of it, all heavy in his throat and stained with something that probably makes him even angrier at night. "Go home. You can come over tomorrow; it's almost April's bedtime."

"Okay," Andy nods but then Mr. Wyatt looks up at him intently. "Sir."

A smile passes over his face before he takes a drink of the brown liquid in the little, squarish glass next to him. Andy nearly runs out of the house, trying to figure out if he wants to go over there anymore. Then again, April wouldn't go anywhere so he has to. She's too cool, anyways. Even if her dad is scary, she and Ben are awesome. Sprinting back to his house, like he's afraid Steven Wyatt will appear behind him to scream, Andy almost pulls the door off of its hinges when he flies inside and has to take a few, deep breaths to relax more.

Now he knows why Ben likes to be in charge of April, why they don't talk a lot about their parents, and why April doesn't really talk.

At school during break, the day after the most awkward dinner of his life, Andy notices that the swings on the playground are empty. Usually they spend recesses at the swings, the only two that bother with them anymore, eventually moving to some pile of dirt or playing in the mulch underneath their feet just there at the sets. The crunchy, messy mixture of wood chips and other assorted junk cut him and April up sometimes, but that just made it more fun to pretend that they were digging deep into the ground for people. Sometimes they were trapped miners, sometimes corpses. Either way, it was fun and walking away with brown stains up and down his arms and cuts around his wrists was so worth it.

That day, she wasn't there. Slumping his shoulders, Andy went and played dodgeball with his other friends until he glanced over at the slide and saw her going down it and then walking back up to the landing a few feet off the ground. Instead of taking it again, she just sat there and put her arms over her knees and let her head drop onto them.

Running over, ignoring his game and the other kids shouting at him to come back, Andy climbed the playground equipment in a flash. Before she could even look up, he had bounded up to her and sat next to her. April didn't move or say anything. That wasn't that weird, though. She didn't like to talk that much anyways, so Andy usually did it for the both of them as he said. The first day he suggested that, they were playing a game where she was mute and instead of speaking had to whisper in Andy's ear and let him translate to Ben that he was a dork. It was fun, but she also said the funniest stuff sometimes so Andy doesn't mind when she says it in her weirdly scary, tiny voice.

April just sits there, kicking her legs out from the structure, only getting contact on the backs of her legs.

He doesn't know why it makes sense, but the only thing he can do is put his arms around her shoulders and hug her tight. She twitches, almost retracting and flinching, but then April settles and she's so cold and definitely the smallest person in the world that it hits Andy all at once and he wants to hug her harder to make her warm again. Keeping his head far away from her, Andy gives her a final, light squeeze before breaking away and looking ahead. Silent, they watch other kids play and he wonders if that was the wrong thing to do. Physical games and messing around didn't bother her, and she wanted to learn how to play football with his brothers but Andy didn't know if her dad would be okay with that and learned he definitely wasn't, but this was different.

Minutes pass without a word, or a shared look. For a second he thinks she starts to speak but then it's lost and that's okay. They had tons of fun for hours on end without either of them saying a word, sometimes going whole days trying to see if they could go it silent. As recess comes to an end, she taps her shoes together and gets up. Andy follows her and they take their separate ways as usual, still not saying a word.

When Andy gets home, a long while later than April who gets a ride from her dad just like always, he opens the front door and inside Aaron gives him a little box. There isn't much of a smile, let alone his usual stupid grin, on his face this time, even when Andy sees that there's a note glued to the top of the box saying April. Usually her gifts were met with a joke or two, but he only had a mild, somber look. It's one of those pencil cases with the ridged, plastic lids and Andy thinks it's going to be another dead animal. Popping it open, inside is a pile of leaves and a frog. It's still alive, ribbiting and staring at him. Beside the frog is a little note, written in crazy lettering with crayons Andy knows April has.

You're my best friend.

The next day, at April's house doodling in red clouds onto the knife wounds she drew on the piglets in a stupid coloring book, it hits Andy how he's going to be in a different school than April for two years. It's kind of weird, and scary since he won't get to see her at recess until then, but they'll probably keep hanging out. Lying down on his stomach next to April, the sight must be humorous to anyone else. April's little legs barely reach down to his knees, her extended feet still a crazy distance from his ankles, and they bump into each other while filling in hilarious images with as much red as they could and leaving scary, bloody faces across the pages. Andy doesn't really like to color that much anymore, especially after being yelled at by his brothers that it's what little kids do, but April still likes it and she always has awesome, creative ideas for making every sheep intended to be cute as a lamb to look more like a demonic goat-creature after they were done.

The light of her bedroom lamp, the one next to her bed, illuminates their work. Her face when she's concentrated is so weird, her nose wrinkled up at the bridge and her eyes staring with intense focus. She doodles with her left hand, something Andy tried and couldn't figure out. It was okay though since April couldn't do it with her right. He always wanted to be left-handed for some reason, just because it seemed cooler, and since April was that just made her even more awesome in his eyes.

"Will you still play?" she asks quietly while she stays intent on her drawing. April's started talking a little bit more, and Andy never stays for dinners anymore. "At my house? We can do all kinds of stuff here. There's a cool spot in the backyard where I think someone died."

"Awesome," Andy murmurs.

"So…" she trails off, putting her crayon down and looking at him.

"Dude, you're cool. We'll hang out here now," he nudges her shoulder and April laughs. That meek, tiny thing he can make her do usually only when he hurts himself. "You wanna make a clubhouse?"

"What?"

"We can go in the woods behind your house and find a tree and call it our clubhouse," he explains. April's super young, so she needs it sometimes. Except when she knows more about something than him, then it's just the other way around. It never really bothers him when that happens, because it means she'll talk and it's fun. "Or we can try and make one, too. That'd be awesome."

"Yeah," she nods.

For a few minutes they keep at their work, finally finishing and looking at what they've done. The lines of a star are now jagged with red and black spikes, linking together to make it look like a fuzzy starfish with an angry little face in the middle of it all. Laughing to himself, Andy rips the page out of the coloring book and walks over to the corkboard on April's wall just above her little desk. Taking a thumbtack, he pins it alongside the other drawings. Various demons and monsters line the little brown canvas, steadily filling up with crazier and crazier looking drawings. Apparently April always used to do them, but before she came to Pawnee someone talked to her and told her drawing that stuff was bad.

Andy just thought it all looked cool.

"You're awesome," he hears April mumble behind him.

Turning around, she's standing up and staring at him. Taking a few steps forward she tentatively wraps her arms around his waist, answering his hug from the day before. Without saying a word to her, he returns hers and when they break away she's smiling. Wide, something he never thought he'd see and with teeth he wasn't entirely sure were as soft and flat as regular people teeth, half expecting jagged fangs to show where her real, normal teeth were. He lifts his hand up, waiting for her, and April slaps his hand in a high five that makes them both grin wide.

There's something important in so small an action. Maybe it's because he wants to be her best friend and she's just admitted that he's awesome - which he definitely is, Andy knows that - but it feels like they're sealing a deal. Making a pact. They're signing an agreement that no matter what happens, they're gonna be best friends. No matter what's wrong, they've got each other's backs. Or, maybe, it was just a really cool high five. Either way, Andy's happy with it.

Then her dad screams for dinner, and Andy makes his way home. At least he made April smile, and they hugged. When he gets home, there's the assumption that someone will ask him what he did at April's house that made him smile so much. Then again, Andy always smiled. Still, he wondered about what to say and considered talking about how awesome getting a high five from April was and how hugs made her happy. Thinking better of it, he never tells Aaron about it. After all, April's just his friend and he doesn't want to hear his brother get all weird about things anymore.