A/N: This is from a drabble/prompt/request thing that an anon sent to me on tumblr last night. I just had to write this because the idea was kind of cool, especially because it allowed me to characterize the Ludgate-Dwyer baby a little more than usual. So, uhh, yeah!

Enjoy!

Title is from the Weepies song.

In five days, it's only five days, and things might get to go back to normal. Five days and April knows they'll finally be free from the tyranny of a child in their house. Yeah, Roberta barely spent any time there in the last few years as it was, but she was happy that things would go back to how she remembered them being. It was still amazing to her that a kid had made it through so much of her life under their care – and that word was so qualified for April and Andy – but all told she was glad things happened the way did. Sure, every few weeks April would find herself terrified that maybe they'd slip up again when they were definitely not ready at all for number two. There were even a couple times she thought that Roberta herself was far too much for the two of them to deal with.

Then she remembered that it wasn't just her kid, and somehow Andy proved to be more than ready to be the other half of the agreement. Even when she couldn't rely on the "just gave birth" excuse – which was admittedly a really damn good excuse – and only wanted to get sleep, Andy still took up a few extra duties. After a while, she started looking at it like a competition to see who could do the most nights in a row taking of their daughter when she was that young – that way it felt more like old times, like years they'd not forgotten but somehow had fallen to the wayside in their shambling path to maturing. Or, at least, the closest to maturity and being adults they could be.

That's probably why she's thinking so hard about Roberta leaving for college.

She can't remember the last time that they've been April and Andy. Not that the Ludgate-Dwyer household wasn't awesome, since the years of indoctrination meant their family dinners consisted of pizza rolls and the three of them lounging in the living room all night while watching whatever new obsession Roberta had. Vacations were the easiest thing ever, since she never wanted to go anywhere and April was happy to stay at home and not go to work for a week or two.

At the same time she hears the door open. Roberta shouts that she's home and April wonders just how much she's going to miss how familiar that's been.

"Mom, what are you doing?"

It's seven in the morning, and neither of them are ever up this early without extreme incentives, but April's been up for an hour folding clothes. Folding and refolding them, messing them up intentionally just so she can keep doing it over and over again. They're all of the things that are getting packed away for the first semester and April's not sure why but she feels a little extra comfort in that silly repetition.

"Laundry," she answers sarcastically, because she's raised her daughter to be smarter than that.

"Clearly," Roberta answers back, hopping up on the washer and pointing to the piles of clothes. "But, y'know, I did all of that last night."

"I know, but you did it wrong," April returns.

Neither of them says anything after that for a little while. Between the two of them, Andy's going to be the one that's overly emotional when they're finally done with an incredible extended move-in day, but April also knows that if she lets the clothes sit in their baskets and the bags, all of those stupid hampers they bought as well, then Roberta's one step closer to being away. April still remembers the first time she got her daughter to insult someone, pointing at Ben and calling him a nerd with an oblivious smile on her face, and she remembers what it was like laughing with her the first time she really understood what she was calling the older man.

She knows she's creasing her head in thought because when she does that Roberta mimics her and makes a much more exaggerated fish-face, lips pouty and focusing on her mom. It escalates like it always does, this stupid little game, with the two of them increasing the absurd grimaces they can contort their faces in. In the end April wins this time, because Roberta starts laughing when she flares her nostrils and juts her jaw out in an attempt at stretching her face out. Also she's pretty sure that her daughter accidentally got whiff of the cobwebs and dust in the corner where she was sitting, back against the wall, but it counts.

"That totally doesn't count," Roberta immediately says after recovering, still swatting away at the dust. "That's interference."

"Does too," April returns childishly, sticking her tongue out and going back to sorting and re-sorting the same clothes.

She knows that this is the part where April gets to discover new things in her own life and rediscover things she thought were long gone in her marriage. Then again, that feels empty in comparison to watching her daughter kicking her feet off the washer and creating a massive clanging every few seconds. Then she feels Roberta jump off of the machine and leave her a one-armed hug, slinging her arm over the back of April's neck for a second, before walking back to her room. It's almost enough to make her break down right there.

April knows how familiar the symptoms are, and hell if she's going to admit that in a way she hopes she's right, but for now she's got more important things to worry about. There are more important things to worry about than getting warning signs a handful of weeks in, and she knows it, but it still infuriates her that they're coming in at all. People are sending papers to her, there's so many of these stupid reports that need done, and she can't help but wonder why on Earth she had ever accepted the promotion to director. True, she was technically the first female Parks director in Pawnee – Ron never gave Leslie the chance – but it was days like this that made her want to drive a fiery hot poker into her skull.

Endless requests, complaints, and then even one phone call of all things, and April had enough. She told her assistant to watch over things for the rest of the day as she was taking it off. They've known her to take abrupt vacation days before, and it was well within her right to take advantage of those accumulated hours, so it doesn't come as much of a surprise.

Something about that little park behind what used to be Ann's lair comforts her on days like this. Maybe it's because amidst a sea of paperwork and seemingly menial tasks, seeing something she's worked so hard for – she and Leslie, to be fair – alive and well makes things a little calmer. A very young couple is walking a dog around in circles all the way across the park when she sits down on a bench, and she watches them cover every corner with the dog slowly trotting alongside them.

She watches them make mostly incoherent paths on the grass until they leave to continue their walk elsewhere. Then April's left alone on the lot, watching blades of grass move a little in the wind and wondering why no one's been cutting it to regulation – and God that thought makes part of her want to vomit immediately – but she likes it. It's quiet, kind of since Pawnee's not gotten much better in that department over the years, and she feels a little calmer.

So she goes down to the pharmacy and buys one of those stupidly named kits and stares at it for a solid minute before she tucks it away in her purse and leaves without paying for it. She knows the blind spots of the cameras too well – she stole the exact same brand from the exact same store eighteen years and some change prior.

"You're-"

"Pregnant," she finishes it, staring at him.

"That's awesome," he says perhaps a little too loudly.

It took so long for Andy to get it out of her that night. At dinner, the two of them sitting in bed and picking at the assortment of egg rolls and spiced chicken, she knew she was being distant and Andy was way too perceptive of that to just let it go. Roberta was out for the night, hanging out with her friends that she wasn't going to get to see for who knows how long, so they stayed in and kept to themselves in the bedroom. It was mostly because April was going to begin to hate walking past Roberta's room – her former room – and making her way down the hall to their bedroom, and she just wanted to stay in solitude for that last night.

"Yeah, I guess," she lets out a sigh and sits back against the pillow at the head of the bed.

"I mean, we don't have to have the kid…" he says slowly, and she just gives him a small look that tells him that's not what she's thinking at all.

She couldn't stop thinking about what she had previously assumed life would be like for them now – going back to those early years of sitting around the house naked or barely in anything, eating awful food out of whatever they could find, and sitting around making up insane scenarios and games to play. Most of them ended pretty much the same way, and neither of them were ever too unhappy about eventually falling into bed with a new set of characters in mind, but April thought she missed that.

Then she remembers what it was like being called "mommy" for the first time, and carrying Roberta on her back while her daughter played with her hair and laughed, and all of those little moments. Those games they made up over the years, the things that really made April reevaluate what she thought being a mother would feel like.

"Do you really want to do all of this," she motions with her hands around the bed and towards the rest of the house, "again?"

"Sure," he answers quickly.

In the years that have passed, all of the times April's watched him give everything he can for all three of them, April finds a different, unusual appreciation for Andy. Somehow his hair getting a little grey isn't gross and disgusting like she always thought it would be, and she's never been more turned on than when she comes home from work and this fifty-year old incarnation of her husband is still giving her looks like she's the only woman he's ever seen, so the second child's not really that surprising. In fact, April was kind of expecting it to happen earlier than this, but they really had been more careful about things than before the first pregnancy. In part it's kind of hilarious to them that Roberta always gives them a look, rolls her eyes back, and makes a choking noise whenever they're kissing for more than a brief moment.

So it's not that much of a surprise to April that they're having this conversation, only the timeline.

"I mean, you want more kids right?" she asks him plainly, poking a strangely shaped bit of chicken with her fork and making a face. "You always wanted a bunch of 'em."

"I guess, but do you?"

His question kind of catches her off guard for a second, because in some way she knows the answer to it already. April does but there's still something that makes her wonder if they can handle another baby, and then another toddler, and another teenager… and everything those changes meant. Also, they'd be really old parents and that felt weird to her.

"Yeah," she gets out after chewing on a ball of clumped up rice.

"Awesome."

That's really all she needs to hear from him.

Throughout the whole of the drive, Andy refuses to let Roberta take over. He's staring headlong at the road, barely tearing his eyes away for anything, and April's never seen him so focused on something in her life. There might have been a point in the early years where she remembers him being so adamant about his feelings, but watching him grip the steering wheel was completely different.

It was incredibly silent when they finished packing away the assortment of clothes, blankets, and everything else that April could manage to sneak into the car for the semester. Somehow, with April left to her thoughts and Roberta focused intently on her phone, it was even quieter in the car. Two hours of hearing the sounds of Indiana pass by, the occasional hum of something on the radio actually catching her ear, and then they were suddenly there and those dorms felt real. Moving everything into the car felt like it took an eternity, but on the way up – and meeting the people that she was forced to room with – the move was over before it had even started.

She could see it in Andy's eyes, and when he gave her a hug she was lifted off the ground – no mean feat considering that the girl had nearly reached his own height and wasn't as much a slouch as either of her parents – and April just gives her a sort of all-too-tight embrace. Then, when they're about to leave, she sticks her tongue out to Roberta who just sneers and pulls her nostrils up with her index and middle finger.

At least on the ride back they can talk, but they really don't. April just occasionally sighs and Andy's talking to himself about how he's so obviously not crying.