Time moves very slowly for Ben.
He spends most his days in his room, locked away, his parents absolutely insistent that he stay home as much as possible. And while normally he would brush this off and sneak out every night, now things are different. Now he has a harder time even leaving bed in the morning, rolling over and pulling his pillow to him and just trying not to think, trying not to panic.
He tries to be numb, because it's easier that way.
Andy and Tom will stop by every so often, when Ben allows them to, but they never seem to know what to do. They try to talk to him, try to do anything at all, but it's like all they're capable of is sitting in Ben's room, staring into nothing, picking at the carpet, starting and dropping conversation topics. They try to get Ben to eat, to listen to music, maybe just laugh a little, but when it gets too frustrating they sigh, end up waving after him, walking out the door and coming again in a couple days.
It's not that Ben is incapable of living. He just isn't trying.
Maybe it's the nightmares. Maybe it's because everytime he closes his eyes to fall asleep, he sees a flash of blonde hair and catches a whiff of something like whipped cream, and he's falling all over again. Her voice screams over his, begging him, pleading with him for something that he can't understand. He sees her mocking him, sees her crying, sees her bleeding, sees her dead.
The latter always makes him jolt awake, a silent scream on his lips.
And she's not just in his nightmares, either. She's everywhere. Her face is on a poster on every street, splashed across the news on Pawnee Today and Perd Hapley's show. Even Crazy Ira and The Douche make a segment for her, right after Thought for Your Thoughts with Derry Murbles does. Word is getting out around Pawnee, and it almost feels like there isn't a single soul who doesn't wonder where Leslie Knope went. And maybe that's why Ben is so homebound, lately— it's the closest he can get to escape.
Funnily enough, anytime spent outside his bedroom is now spent in the company of Ann Perkins. It starts just with text messages checking up on each other, if there's any news, if they're sleeping alright, if they've had any epiphanies. They end up turning to each other first, before almost anyone else, as if they're comforted by the fact that the other knew Leslie, connecting to each other through her.
When Ben's parents are being particularly awful and his brain is in an especially bad place, he calls Ann, and now the two of them sit on the porch swing in his backyard, neither looking at the other. They swing just gently, rocking back and forth with their heels, staring at the floor or across the garden.
Ann's hands rest in her lap, anxiously smoothing out her sundress. He catches the shaking of her palms, how her eyes struggle to stay open, how heavy her head looks. She's missing something, some kind of usual fire, and he's never seen her look quite so empty.
"You haven't been sleeping," he says. It's a statement, not a question.
She doesn't even flinch. "Neither have you."
Ben winces. "Are we that transparent?"
"At least I'm not pretending."
She doesn't say it with any kind of menace, but it strikes Ben as a call out, a quip that she's been meaning to make for quite a while now. She doesn't even look at him as she says it, so deadpan, staring at her open palms.
"What do you think I'm pretending about?"
Ann tries to hide it, but Ben can see her nose scrunch up, her eyes start to water. She ducks her head lower, letting her hair cover her face from view. "It's just… it's just kind of funny, isn't it? How you hated her for four years… you couldn't even be friends. But, all of a sudden, now that she's missing—"
The shock of the statement slaps Ben, like ice cold water down his back. "Are you— are you accusing me pretending to care about her? You think I'm lying about… what, wanting to find her?"
"Maybe not." She grips her sundress in her fists. "Not necessarily lying. But I kind of wonder if you're only so worried about her because she's missing."
Ben chokes, the anger rising in him, but he forces it down. He takes deep breaths, rubbing at his brow, looking at Ann sideways. "You don't know the whole story," he says. "Do you? I thought you might, because you and her were best friends—"
"Are best friends. Present tense."
"— but you don't know, do you? You don't know what our… relationship was like, or I'm not sure you would be saying that to me right now."
He's not sure he wants to talk about it, all that he and Leslie went through— he doesn't think he can unpack it all now. But it surprises him, if Ann doesn't know, especially considering she's alluded to him in the past that she has an idea. His throat tightens.
Ann purses her lips, looks at him quickly. "I only ever heard her side of things. That's different."
"And what was her side of the story?"
She shrugs and doesn't answer.
Ben looks back out at the garden, leaning forward on the porch swing to rest his elbows on his knees. "I didn't hate her," he admits, his voice lowering. "Or, at least, I had a really hard time hating her. But this… stupid rivalry started and she kept pushing, and something about her made me want to keep pushing back. It got her attention, so why not? It's like it was the only way she would ever look at me, if I was pissing her off."
"That's not a very good excuse, you know," she grumbles, shaking her head. "You made her life hell for some attention."
"And she didn't do the same with me?" He lets the statement linger in the air. "We both made mistakes. We were both so stupid, but once the rivalry started, it seemed impossible to stop. Even the… even the softer moments we did have, it didn't last. It was some huge, never ending cycle that was absolute hell for me, and I didn't know how to get out."
"That still doesn't change the fact that you're only acting like this because she's missing." Ann refuses to hide her tears now, trailing softly down her cheeks as she shoots her head up, looking right at him. Her eyes burn a hole in his head. "If Leslie was still here right now, you would still be wrapped in that stupid rivalry, hating each other and making the other cry. It's fake."
He starts to wonder if that's true. He imagines what would've happened if Leslie never left at all, if she did show up at graduation. She would've done her speech, and it would be amazing, but Ben would be bitter. They would part ways that night with a nod of their heads, strained and tense, incapable of even touching each other for fear of what it would mean.
But maybe they would've seen each other at the party that night. Maybe they would have talked. Maybe…
"Maybe you're right," he says suddenly, dejected. "Maybe it would never end. And I don't think you realize just how regretful I am because of that. It took this much for me to realize what she meant to me, this much to really feel guilty about all those years. And I wish I could go back, I do."
Ann sniffles, looks up at him with wide, cloudy eyes. "You do?"
Ben nods. "If I could take back all four years of rivalry, I would do it in a heartbeat. I would do anything to be able to take it all back and… and just be her friend. Maybe whatever happened to her could've been stopped. Maybe it could all be different today."
"How could you have stopped it? We don't know what happened to her."
"I don't know," he sighs. "I really don't. I just… I can't help but feel responsible for it."
"Are the police still in contact with you?"
"Not really." They've been by his house a couple times, just to ask the same questions they've always asked, but it means nothing. Everytime Ben asks them if they're doing enough, if they have any leads, why they let Mark Brendanawicz go, but there's never anything new. It's useless, and a waste of time. "And I haven't heard anything from Brendanawicz, either. I think he's laying low, everyone from the school is pretty pissed at him. That's what Tom and Andy told me, at least. They all think he did it."
"Do you think he did it?" she asks, biting down on her bottom lip. It's a genuine question, as if she's unsure herself.
"God, I– I really don't know," he admits. "Part of me wants to say he did it. But I think that's only because having a main suspect feels better than nothing. Makes me feel closer to the truth, like I'm actually doing something."
"But he did say that she would regret breaking up with him."
"So do you think he did it?"
Ann groans, holds her head in her hands. "No. I don't. I think he's an asshole, but I don't think he's capable of… oh god." She covers her mouth then, her cheeks puffing up. She shakes her head over and over, another tear spilling down her face, before she releases herself with a gasp. "Ben," she cries, the sobs making her whole body shake, "Ben. Do you think she's dead?"
And just the thought of it, just the single act of asking, makes the image come to mind, the one that's been haunting Ben's nightmares to the point that not even sleeping pills can save him. He sees her, every goddamn time he closes his eyes. He sees her lying on the floor, eyes closed as if she's sleeping, but there's no rise and fall of her chest. She's still, so goddamn still, but he can't tell what's wrong with her until he gets closer. She's clean until he's on his knees next to her, and that's when the blood comes, pouring out of her. And every night he grabs for her, shakes her shoulders, presses his ear to her heart, begs her to wake up, begs her not to do this to him, not to leave him forever. And every night he jolts awake with the feeling of blood still lingering on his palms, running to the bathroom to scrub it away when it doesn't even exist.
His stomach churns, and he feels like he might be sick. "Don't say that," he begs of Ann. "Please, please never say that."
"Ben," she chokes. "Ben, face the facts. We haven't seen her in two weeks. Every minute it gets worse and worse, harder to find her—"
"Have you been talking to April? Don't listen to April—"
"— and there's absolutely no leads. The closest we got was Mark and he's really just an asshole at the end of the day, I think we both know that. Nobody knows anything, the cops are lazy bastards who can't do their own damn job, and nothing is happening anymore. What if… what if she is?"
Ben holds a hand over his mouth as if to keep the sickness inside him, stilling the rocking of the porch swing so as not to upset his stomach. Suddenly it's far too bright outside, much too peaceful. The world without Leslie ought to be cold and grey.
"She's not," he insists, clenching his jaw. "I just… I just know it. If she dies, I'll just know it."
Ann sets her jaw as she stares at him, her eyes turning steely and cold. "I don't know if you know anything, Wyatt."
He doesn't quite know how to respond to that, so he doesn't. He doesn't want to humor Ann's negative thoughts, not when they'll only make the both of them feel worse. He has enough dark images of his own to dip into Ann's as well. So they stay silent, rocking gently on the porch swing again, uncaring as the summer heat picks up and beats down on them, making them sweat, making their throats dry. They don't move at all, just staring at the grass or the garden. But unlike before, it's no longer peaceful.
A chime sounds, signaling to Ben that he has a text, and he almost doesn't want to get it. It's just Tom or Andy, trying to get him to come out again, but he doesn't think he can do it, not now, not when everytime he closes his eyes he sees blonde hair flecked with blood.
Sure enough, the text is from Tom.
'Dude, you need to get over here, right now.'
Ben sighs and has every intention of ignoring it, but Tom has already texted again.
'Shauna's back, dude. Shauna Malwae-Tweep. Her house is across the street from mine and I swear I just saw her.'
Ben doesn't know why, but this makes him freeze, the hand holding his phone seemingly going numb. It should be nothing. It should absolutely be nothing, because why wouldn't Shauna Malwae-Tweep be here? She has every reason to be in her own house.
"Shauna's back," he breathes, and Ann whips her head around.
"Shauna? The one who dropped out a month before graduation? Your ex-girlfriend?"
"The very same," he mumbles, swallowing hard. "No one had been in contact with her since she dropped out."
"Yeah, I heard a rumor she moved away. Some people thought she got married or got pregnant or something."
"Ann." Ben's fingers trembled on his phone, Tom's texts waiting unanswered. "Isn't that a little weird? That she dropped out and had no contact with anyone? No one has even seen her outside her house? What if this is the something that we've been waiting to happen?"
She bites her lip, looking entirely unconvinced. "You think Shauna has something to do with it? Or you think she knows something? Honestly, Ben, she's been gone a month. She probably doesn't even know Leslie is missing."
"Then I'll tell her." He stands up off the porch swing, letting it rock with his absence, shoving his phone in his pocket. "I'm gonna go meet up with Tom. It might be nothing, but… but I need to feel like I'm doing something. Anything is worth a shot."
SOPHOMORE YEAR
Shauna was pretty.
Ben liked to hold her hand as he walked down the hallways, and he especially liked to press her up against his locker and kiss her between classes. Her hair was dark and curling underneath his fingers and when she looked up and smiled at him, he traced over her dimples.
But more than that, Ben really liked the way dating Shauna seemed to piss Leslie off.
Her locker was still right next to his— maybe that's why he always chose that spot to make out with Shauna. He would press his lips to hers and very pointedly pretend he didn't notice Leslie tapping her feet behind them, fists clenching, shouting at him until he eventually broke free.
"Oh, hey, Knope," he would say nonchalantly, Shauna's lipstick on his face. "Didn't see you there."
Her face would scrunch up, she'd maybe call him a name or two, and then shove him out of the way to get to her locker, shooting Shauna a death glare in the process. She was bitter, and Ben didn't exactly understand why, but he very much lived to piss her off. So it was worth it, to make her late for class just by kissing Shauna.
It was a new, fresh relationship. Only about two weeks, but that didn't stop him from having his hands on Shauna any time he could. She was hot, after all, so he had no reason not to be happy. She wasn't all that great with conversation, and was a little empty-headed, but it was fine. He was okay with talking to her about absolutely nothing.
Which is what he was doing, texting under his desk that day during a Student Council meeting. Leslie was speaking to the group as a whole, something about rallying together for some event that didn't matter and Ben didn't care about. Leslie wasn't even in charge, she wasn't president, but she was spearheading the meeting as if she was, so Ben didn't exactly feel inclined to give her the time of day. Not when there was a cute girl texting him.
"Is everyone listening?" Leslie huffed, and Ben could feel her eyes on him. He didn't even bother to look up, sending Shauna a quick text heart. If nothing else but to have a reason to keep texting.
"Absolutely listening," Ben mumbled, still not looking, and he felt her anger rise.
"I'm trying to make an announcement, asshole."
She was a little too lucky that Ron Swanson was the head teacher in charge of Student Council, because he didn't give a damn what Leslie did. He sat back in his corner desk with a block of wood to carve and a steak he brought for lunch, tuning out everything, occasionally mentioning that all these activities were a waste of time anyway, and they definitely shouldn't be teaching government principles to students. So it was a little too easy for her to get away with calling him an asshole.
The insult made him uneasy, however, more than Ben wanted to let on. It was still very early sophomore year, and he was still getting a lay of the land. He had Andy, sure, and now he supposed Shauna, but other than that most people were strangers. He wasn't really going to have anyone sticking up for him here if Leslie started yelling at him.
So why did he want to piss her off so badly?
"And I'm trying to have a text conversation with someone," Ben retorted back, waving his phone at her. She had her arms crossed over her chest, her whole body tensed up, and he fought the urge to grin. "It's very important."
"You're a jerk," she hissed. "You already made me late for class today with your indecency, and now you're going to talk through my announcement? What are you even doing on Student Council if you're just going to mess around?"
"Weird, I don't remember you being Student Council president—"
"I'm Secretary, I'm allowed to make an announcement—"
"And I'm allowed to not care," he quipped. And as if on cue, his phone rang, music playing loud enough to properly annoy Leslie even further. It was just a spam call, nothing important, but Ben had to bite back his grin just at the entire situation, the way she nearly shrieked with annoyance.
Oh, but Ben could do her one better.
He declined the spam call, but then instantly brought the phone to his ear as if he had answered it. "Oh, hey Shauna," he said into the phone, lying through his teeth, trying not to give himself away. "Aww, babe, I miss you, too. No, I'm not doing anything important."
"Are you kidding me?!" Leslie screamed, and Ben couldn't help but think she looked like a little teapot— tiny and cute and absolutely steaming. Not a threat. "Tell your little girlfriend to keep it in her pants, why don't you? You have a meeting, Wyatt."
Ben mocked a pout, still with his phone to his ear. "You don't care about my girlfriend, Knope? You don't wanna talk to her? She can tell you all about this morning when I—"
"I don't wanna hear about it!" She held her hands over her ears, looking ready to burst. He didn't think he had ever seen her quite so frustrated. "I don't care about Shauna, I don't like her or you."
"Shauna, babe, do you hear that? Honestly, yeah, she's such a jerk to you—"
"Put down your phone, asshole!"
Ben sighed, long and drawn out. "I guess I gotta go, babe," he said into the phone. "But I'll see you tonight. I miss you and your face so much." He pulled his phone from his ear and pretended to hang up, setting it down on his desk. He gestured wildly between it and Leslie, raising a brow. "Are you happy now?"
"No," she hissed, her nose scrunched up. "Why the hell did you do that? Are you trying to piss me off?"
"Is it that obvious? No, I just always answer my phone."
"Liar."
"Totally true. I answer every call, no matter what. Just a thing I do."
"You're totally lying to me. You're not even a good liar."
Ben didn't think that was true, considering he had just lied about calling Shauna right to Leslie's face and she hadn't noticed. That, and he totally was lying through his teeth when he claimed it was his habit to always pick up his phone. Sure, he tried to pick up most times, because his little sister Steph would call from anywhere whenever she was having a hard time, but it wasn't exactly the constant habit he was claiming it to be.
"I don't know what more you want from me, Knope," he said, and he even put his hands in the air as if in surrender. "If my phone rings, I'm gonna answer it."
"I'll watch you then," she spit suddenly, looking surprised by her own words. "I'll make sure to watch you. If your phone rings I'll expect you to pick up."
Ben grinned, but this time it was a little more wary. How far would he have to go to keep this bit going? "Then I guess you'll see, won't you? How about you return to your precious little meeting, Madam President? —Oh, my bad, that's right, you're the Secretary."
Leslie fully screamed then, instantly set off again, her hands going to her hair. "This meeting is over. Meeting adjourned, Mr. Swanson."
She stormed out the classroom door without even another look back, Ron slowly looking up from his desk with little care. And despite the fact that Leslie didn't have the ranking to adjourn a meeting, Ron only shrugged, leaned back in his seat, and muttered, "Sounds good to me."
"Dude, that was amazing." Ben spun around to a higher-pitched voice on his right, a boy standing and grinning open-mouthed at him as if he had just seen a miracle. Ben recognized him, vaguely, as the sophomore class representative in Student Council, but he had never been bothered to learn his name. He spent too much time just trying to annoy Leslie.
"Uhh, thanks," Ben responded, much more awkwardly now, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. "I didn't really do anything—"
"You pissed Leslie off, man, and you lived to tell!" The boy laughed, an odd chirping sound, and Ben took note of how well-dressed he was for a sophomore student. He had a tie on. Granted, it was a silver sparkling tie, but it was still a tie. "Tom Haverford," he introduced himself. "And you're Ben, right?"
"Yeah, Ben Wyatt."
"I gotta say, I don't actually hate Knope. She's pretty funny, sometimes, but God, it does feel good to see someone get her all riled up. My boyfriend will get a kick out of this when I tell him. Genius. Now you're really gonna have to answer your phone all the time, aren't you?"
Maybe it was because he instantly saw through his gag, but Ben decided relatively quickly that he liked Tom. And maybe it would be nice to have another friend, one who would laugh with him as Leslie stormed out. And he was right, after all, now he would really need to pick up his phone more.
And an entire year later at a Tom Haverford-party, as she sat on the patio with him drunk and asked for his number, suddenly there was so much more at stake. Suddenly there was an entire other layer added on to what was previously a bit. Leslie went home with his phone number memorized that night, but she never called him, never texted. She just knew his number.
And maybe Ben started answering every single phone call after that just wondering if it would be her that time. Maybe even kind of hoping it would be.
It never was, but he always picked up anyway. Just in case.
PRESENT DAY
Ben meets up with a very confused Tom outside his house, blinking at him as if he's insane.
"So, lemme get this straight," Tom starts, a hand out. "You've been hiding out in your house for days, a total hermit crab shut-in, and the one time you want to leave and get some sun you do it to visit your ex-girl?"
Ben sighs, and shrugs aimlessly. "Well, when you put it like that, it sounds weird."
"That's because it is weird. Are you so hard up that you need to try and get back into her pants?"
"Oh, god, no. That's not what's happening." Ben makes a face, and starts to pull Tom with him across the street. "I just wanna talk to her. It just… what if it's not a coincidence, Shauna coming back now?"
"You sound crazy."
"Maybe. But she legitimately disappeared a month before graduation, didn't talk to anyone, and now she's suddenly back home? What if whatever happened to her is what's happening to Leslie? What if this means Leslie will be back in a month?"
Tom pauses, and slows to a stop, holding on to Ben before he gets too far. "Look, dude, I'll go with you to talk to Shauna, alright? But I just… don't want you to get your hopes up if she doesn't know anything. It really might be nothing at all, you know that, right?"
But Ben doesn't want to listen to logic, or reason. "It will be something. Anything. I just know it, even if it's small. It has to be."
So Tom seems to give in, back to following Ben across the street to where they know Shauna's house to be. She's outside, actually, looking like she's just grabbing the mail or picking basil leaves from her garden, and even from a distance, Ben can tell something is off about it all.
Shauna has always been a small girl, but now she looks positively gaunt, all skin and bones and dark circles under her eyes and her skin not quite so clear as it used to be. Where she used to stand up straight, now she hunches over, her shoulders sagging, or curling inwards, eyes cast downwards. Her hair doesn't curl anymore, but lays long and limp, like she couldn't be bothered to do anything with it, couldn't even be bothered to wash it enough.
"Shauna?" Ben calls when they get close enough, and she instantly jumps— as if completely shocked, terrified out her mind, nearly falling over. She spins around to look at them and holds a hand to her heart, trying to even her breathing. "Oh god, are you okay? I'm so sorry—"
"I'm fine," she insists, but she's still slightly hunched over, her chest rising and falling. "I just… I just didn't see you there. I wasn't expecting you. Um, hi Ben, hi Tom. How are you?"
Ben exchanges a glance with Tom, who holds his arms up, making it very clear that he's on his own here. "I'm… fine. Uh, but how are you? You kind of— you know, disappeared? We all thought you dropped out. You did, right?"
Her eyes widen, and it's now that Ben notices a distinct lack of emotion there, like her eyes are much duller than they used to be. Almost older. Like she's seen things. "Drop out? Oh my gosh, no, I just left Pawnee High. I started homeschooling for my last month."
"Wait, what? Why?"
"I, um… I couldn't be at that school anymore."
"Woah, wait," Tom interrupts suddenly, and he pushes himself up next to Ben, looking at Shauna carefully. "You've been homeschooling? Where? You haven't been home—"
"What makes you think I haven't been home?"
Ben's heart hammers in his chest, and he knows, he just knows that something is off here, something is wrong. There's a missing piece to the story here that Ben doesn't know, and it feels so close he can taste it. "You… you've been home?" he asks her, his throat suddenly very dry. "But you haven't been out, at all. No one's seen you, no one so much as got a text from you, or we'd have heard about it."
"Yeah," Tom adds. "I live across the street from you. There's been nothing. Your car hasn't even moved from that spot—"
"Well I've been home!" Shauna's voice gets higher pitched, and she takes one step back. "I've just been staying indoors, why are you asking? Why do you care—"
"Shauna." Ben's voice drops, much lower now, far more serious. It's sharp enough that it stops her in her tracks. "You don't know about Leslie, do you?"
She pales considerably. "Leslie…? What about Leslie? She hasn't— You haven't— Did something happen? What did she do?"
She doesn't know. Shauna has been home in Pawnee this whole time, just hiding out in her house, and she's even managed to avoid hearing the news about Leslie. Ben doesn't want to be the bearer of bad news, he really doesn't, but he sees no other way around this, not if he's going to try and get answers somehow.
"Shauna," he says again, sadder this time. "Leslie is missing."
"She… she's what?"
"She went missing. She never showed up for graduation—"
"She never showed up for graduation? Are you sure it was graduation?"
"Yes. I know because I had to do her speech instead. She's a missing person and we've been trying to find her, to get some kind of clue because the police are useless—"
"You won't find her," Shauna hisses, stumbling backwards. It strikes fear in his heart, the kind of phrase that paralyzes him. Ben opens his mouth to ask, because she must know something, takes a step closer to her to try and reach her, calm her down, but she just distances herself further, now refusing to even so much as meet their eyes. "Oh my god," she heaves, sounding thick with tears. "Oh my god, oh god, I can't do this. I'm so sorry, it was great seeing you both, but I have to go—"
"What? No, Shauna, you can't go yet, I wanted to ask you about—"
"Don't. Don't ask me about anything. Nothing at all. You know what? Just… don't talk to me anymore. I'm sick. I'm super sick and I can't talk. Good luck with everything, gotta go, bye!"
Shauna runs back into her house without looking back, her front door slamming shut so violently that it shakes, and Ben winces at the sound of the impact. He hears her lock her door, both locks, and pull all her curtains shut, and then it's silent. Then he's left just to process what happened, what she said, and what this means now. Where the hell can he go from here?
Tom rubs his eyes with his palms. "I think you're right, man, I think she knows something," he admits with a defeated sigh. "I don't know what, or how we're gonna get it, but there's something here."
Ben shakes his head, staring at the rustling curtains at the front of Shauna's house. There's just too much of a coincidence, but absolutely nothing is adding up. He purses his lips and stares at Tom. "And yet, every time I feel like I'm getting closer, I actually just feel farther away."
So he walks back home. And with every step he takes, he seems to lose Leslie all over again. She slips farther and farther away from him, until there's nothing left to hold onto, nothing left of her in the sky that he can scream at.
He only has his nightmares to grow addicted to, his nightmares to see her. Where she holds his face and he can pretend she's here, he can pretend everything is okay even for just a moment, before the bleeding starts and she's crashing out, falling apart, falling down. He goes down with her, every single time. He doesn't even think he's capable of stopping himself at this point.
It's the only place he can hear her, soft and pleading, a stolen lullaby that she sings to him as she goes.
It's not enough.