Happy 2014! I apologize for the insane amount of time it is taking me between updates. This is just a short bit of fluff to set up for some future chapters. We're supposed to get an insane amount of snow tomorrow which will probably mean some snow days, and I'm hoping another update this week with something more substantial.

Thanks to bns8487, The Flying Red Panda, and moviebuff90A for following! A special thanks to Alleyne Happlesful, IrishPotatoes496, and Tell me you're still you for your kind comments and supporting this fiction from the beginning. I can always count on you guys. You rock! Thanks to emkunard98 for your kind comment - I think this chapter will answer your question =), and Skyler for you comment as well - I've got a Chris/Ann chapter coming, promise!

Also, thanks to Alyssa86InMN, Uxiea for your kind reviews and following my other fic, Four Times Ben and Leslie Use the Box.

As always, please follow, favorite, and review! Hopefully, I'll be talking to you all again soon!

She's finally out, Ben texted, can you get the door?

Leslie dropped the armful of toys she was carrying into the toy box in the corner of the room and ran to the front door to let her husband in. She smiled when she pushed open the door to reveal a slightly disgruntled Ben holding their two-year-old daughter nestled against his shoulder, finally asleep.

"Thank you," Ben mouthed as he moved past his wife and into the entryway.

Leslie followed him back to their daughter's room, neither one of them exhaling until Madeline was securely tucked in her crib and they were both standing outside of the shut nursery door.

They waited outside the room for a moment, both expecting to hear a cry or protest from their tiny daughter, but after a minute passed without the patter of her tiny feet running to them or shouts for Leslie, they both realized their daughter was finally asleep.

"How bad was it?" Leslie grimaced as she continued picking up the trail of toys that her daughter had created all through their house.

Bedtime was a nightly struggle in the Knope-Wyatt household and had been since around the time Madeline turned one. It seemed their daughter could run on as little sleep as her mother.

"We ran out of place to go in Pawnee. I had to cross the Eagleton border."

"Really?" Leslie frowned. "That bad."

Ben moved his daughter's Lil' Sebastian doll out of the middle of the room. "She just kept saying 'No sleep, Daddy.' And then she'd stop for a little bit, so I thought I was safe and would turn back to come home, and it would start all over again." Leslie smiled as she watched him run a hand through his hair and lie down on the couch.

"What was it that finally did her in?" Leslie asked as she abandoned the mess she was trying to tame in exchange for snuggling between the couch and her husband's side.

"Calvin Coolidge's First Presidential Address. It knocked her right out." s

"Really?" Leslie asked, a little disappointed that it hadn't been one of Ben's Star Trek soundtracks. "That's one of my favorites."

Ben laughed, "They're all your favorites."

"Because they're all amazing," Leslie argued as she buried her head into his chest and wrapped an arm around his waist. "I'm exhausted. I'm going to sleep for like, four hours tonight."

Ben laughed. It amazed him how little sleep Leslie required to run on her constant buzz of energy. He could sleep for forty hours and still not be anywhere close to matching her joy. "You know this is your fault," he teased.

"What?" she hummed against his chest her eyes still closed.

"Our daughter's fierce resistance to sleep," he explained. "She definitely gets that from you."

"I don't have a fierce resistance to sleep," Leslie protested. "I just think that it's a waste of time."

"Yes," Ben smiled. "Well, you've passed that trait onto our daughter."

Leslie sighed, too tired from her evening to even bring up the few undesirable traits that Ben had passed along, mainly his love for calzones. Okay, really just his love of calzones.

She let her eyes bob shut as she absentmindedly toyed with the buttons of his shirt. These few quiet moments that they got at the end of their day were some of her favorites. It was these small things – the way Ben's exhale tickled her scalp, the way the pad of this thumb would move back and forth across her shoulder, the little snore that would escape his lips as he began to drift off – those were the things that continued to make Leslie's heart swell with love for her husband and make her realize that although the big things were great too, it was these quiet moments that made their relationship what it was.

"This will get easier, right?" Leslie asked as her eyes remained shut. "I mean, she can't protest sleep like this forever."

"It'll get easier," Ben promised as he lifted his head to kiss her hair. "It's just a phase. The terrible twos. She'll grow out of it, and it'll get easier."

"Good," Leslie said, feeling herself on the verge of sleep, "Because we're going to have another one."

There you have it! As always, please read and review.