Breathe in. Breathe out.
Count backwards from one thousand.
Think of warm brownies.
Nope. Still didn't work.
Should she call Ann? No, probably not. It was very late at night and Ann was likely asleep. She had an early morning shift at the hospital and Leslie really shouldn't bug her. But also, maybe Ann wouldn't mind, just this once, because it was very important, more important than anything ever. And Leslie knew she should always talk to Ann before she made huge decisions.
But, crap, it was already too late for that. It was nearing midnight and Leslie was in her car and she had an entire day to think, an entire day since Mark proposed to her that day at six in the morning. She had told Mark she needed a day to think over the decision, and then she left the house. The day was coming to a close, and she was completely and utterly running out of time.
She didn't know where she was driving to. She had no destination. Yet she still somehow found herself in front of Ben's house.
Leslie parked the car along the curb in front of the house, but didn't make any moves to get up. Her seatbelt stayed on, the car turned off, and she gripped her steering wheel with all her strength, pressing her forehead against it and squeezing her eyes shut.
Think, think, think.
She supposed the worst part about this decision was that she didn't know which choice to make. If she was leaning one way, any way, she might have felt better about it all. She might have felt more in control. But instead, there was nothing. Not a single clue. Did she say yes?
She imagined slipping the ring onto her finger and kissing Mark. She imagined planning a wedding with him alongside her campaign and she pictured telling her friends, telling everyone at work, telling Ben.
Ben. She thought of Ben. She thought of giving up Ben, because that is what she would have to do if she said yes to Mark's proposal. There was no way she could keep up an affair when she was getting married.
But then, she imagined saying no.
She pictured things staying more or less as they are. If she said no to Mark, they would either break up, or keep dating until she was ready. Either option would hardly make a difference. If they broke up, Ben was still her boss and dating him would still be a scandal. If she kept dating Mark, and continued her affair with Ben, it would only ever be just that: an affair, a scandal waiting to happen, guilt eating at Leslie until she exploded.
She was so scared. So, so scared. This would never get better and Leslie would be on the losing side of history forever, and all she could think about was what was safest. What was better for everyone, in the long run?
She threw open her car door and pounded on Ben's door.
/
Ben had gotten a phone call that day from Mark Brendanawicz. In retrospect, he really should've never answered it.
He had lifted the phone to his ears with shaky fingers, terrified that they had been found out, that he was going to be threatened, that Mark was going to find him and kill him. Instead, what he learned hurt even more than that possibility.
"Hey Wyatt," Mark had said, sounding impossibly calm, even smug. "Long time no talk."
"What do you want?" Ben had asked. He was sitting in the living room with Andy and April on the floor in front of him, taking turns playing a video game. He really was not in the mood for a smug call.
"I was hoping you remembered the last conversation you and I had in Indianapolis. About how you want my girlfriend?"
Ben swallowed hard, and said again, "What do you want?"
"I wanted to remind you of that, in case you started thinking I forgot, or that you might have a chance again. I do see the way you look at her, Wyatt, I'm not that blind."
"I… I haven't done anything. I swear, I haven't." A lie. A terrible, blatant lie and oh god, Ben's stomach was twisting and he had never felt so awful in his life.
"Good," Mark said. "Because after today, she'll be engaged to me. And if you think I'm protective over my girlfriend now, just wait until—"
Ben hadn't heard the rest. His phone had slipped from his sweaty palms and crashed to the floor, ending the call to Mark. Andy and April barely spared him a glance as he snatched up his phone and ran to his room, slamming his door shut. He was reeling, heaving against the wall, clutching at his stomach.
He was bluffing, right? He had to be bluffing. There was no way, he wouldn't do that. Mark was terrible to Leslie, would he really propose? And, oh god, would Leslie say yes? It would be stable. It would be secure. She wouldn't have to worry about a scandal ever again.
Ben curled against the wall and spiraled into self-pity, losing track of time completely. Every thought in his head ended up twisted up with another, making it impossible to keep track, to come up with a solution to this fucked up situation he had gotten himself into. He should've said no. He shouldn't have ever agreed to only being a part of Leslie's life. He should have asked for more, for all or nothing, because he deserved more than being a secret, a man on the side.
Or did he? Did he deserve her at all? What right, what claim did Ben have on all of Leslie Knope? He was just as much at fault for this. Ben was the one to kiss her first, to go after her even when he knew it was wrong. He chose to be with her even if it meant secrets and their jobs on the line. Ben was selfish, so selfish, because he had decided that having Leslie to himself was more important than her livelihood, than her career, than her future.
What fucking right did Ben have to do any of that?
He was already a nervous mess by the time he heard the knock on the door, knowing who it was without even having to check. He hadn't moved from his spot on the floor since Mark's call, but out of some twisted masochistic nature, he stood up then, and met Leslie outside. He shut the front door behind him, and for a second they just stared at each other.
She looked beautiful. God, she always did.
She was the first to speak. "Are you okay? You look—"
"Mark called me today."
That was all he needed to say. The pieces came together in Leslie's mind, her face twisting, arms twitching as if eager to reach out to him. "Ben, I—"
He held his hand up, backing away from her. If she touched him now, surely he would break under the pressure. "What did you say to him?"
"I— What?"
"What did you say? When he asked you? I know that he did."
She swallowed hard, wrung her hands together. "I haven't actually given him an answer yet. I said I… needed time to think."
The fact that her answer wasn't immediately a hard 'no' punched Ben in the gut. No, stabbed him, twisting into him as if trying to cause as much pain as possible. "Okay," he said slowly. "So, you've had time to think. What are you thinking?"
"Ben, I'm scared."
"That doesn't answer my question."
He was being harsh. Maybe too harsh, but he couldn't afford softness just then. Time was running out and she was slipping from his fingers.
Leslie stared at him for a long time. "I've been thinking… that I want to be with you, Ben. More than anything in the world. But I'm having a very hard time imagining a world where that's possible."
It was the answer he knew was coming, but had hoped desperately wouldn't at the same time. He felt the feeling in his gut already. "Okay," he said. As if he had forgotten all other words.
"I keep thinking about you, Ben, how impossible this situation is. How I want you so badly, and I keep trying to figure out how to make this work, but—"
"But it won't," he interrupted. "So you might as well not even try, right?"
Leslie's face started to twist, the tears forming in the corners of her eyes already. "I have tried, Ben! I've been trying for weeks, but I can't kiss you anymore without that guilt in my stomach, I can't look at you without feeling terrible anymore."
Ben's hands were shaking. "So I'm hurting you. So the best thing is for me to go—"
"BEN!" Leslie cried, and she took another step towards him that he instantly sidestepped. "Ben, don't say that, please, listen to me."
"I'm listening."
The calmer he sounded, the more Leslie dipped into hysteria. Her next words echoed into the night, filled with barely suppressed tears. "This thing we have, Ben, its unsustainable!"
"So you want to break up?"
"NO!" she cried. "No, more than anything, I don't want that. All I want is… is you, to have you, and to not have Mark, and for both of us to keep our jobs and for me to keep running my campaign."
Ben shoved his hands in his pockets to hide the way they were shaking. "Yeah, well, you can't have everything, Leslie. You're gonna have to make a choice."
It was on the tip of her tongue, and by the way she hesitated, he already knew what it was. There was no mistaking it. And he was already so fragile, he suddenly didn't want to hear it.
"No," he cried, losing his calm demeanor for something much more full of emotion. "No, don't… don't even say it. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to stand here in my front yard while you tell me you're going to leave me and marry someone else. I don't want to hear you say you're leaving me for him. I can't hear those words, because I think if I hear them, I'll break. So don't say it. Please, don't say it."
Tears were streaming down Leslie's face, still shuffling towards him, her small body trembling. "Ben, please…"
He shook his head. "I'm begging you not to say it. Leave me, go ahead and leave me, but don't tell me that he's the reason why. Anything but that. I'd rather you just… left."
She looked ready to collapse on the sidewalk. "I don't want this, Ben, I really don't, it's just because—"
"JUST GO, LESLIE!" he screamed, and just that took every inch of energy out of him. His breath was coming out heavy and raspy, his heart beating so fast he wouldn't be surprised if it would physically be ripped from his chest. "Just leave, because every second you're in front of me kills me. I can't stand to look at you right now."
Leslie wiped her cheeks with her hands, bright red, and Ben found himself wanting to brush the tears away himself. But he didn't. He never would again. "I'm only doing this because… because I think it's better, for both of us," she said, finding trouble with the words. "Because this is killing us, and it's killing me to do this—"
"So, I'll make it easy for you," Ben whispered. "I'll do it. It's over, Leslie. You're free. You don't have to worry about your guilt anymore, I understand."
And, before he would start to break, or start to take it back, he turned his back on her, fully prepared to leave her right here, right now, outside his house past midnight. He couldn't look at her anymore. Probably not ever again. It was better that way. There would be no more scandal. Their futures were saved. Right?
He paused with his hand on his doorknob, and turned his head to the side, catching her blonde hair in his peripheral vision. "Oh, and before I forget," he called out to her, "Congratulations on your engagement."
/
Leslie spent too long washing her face in the bathroom when she got back home late that night. It seemed like no matter how much she washed it, the tears would still come back, her cheeks would still be red, her eyes would still be puffy, and Ben's last words to her would still echo in her head. She'd never felt pain quite like this before.
She'd stood on the lawn outside his house for too long after he went inside, cursing herself for even coming in the first place. It was her fault, all her fault, and maybe, just maybe, it could've been avoided if she hadn't gone to see Ben that night.
No, she still would've gotten that terrible call from Mark. That would have only delayed the inevitable.
The only way this kind of pain could have been fully avoided is if she never kissed Ben Wyatt at all. If she never got too close to him, never forced him to stay in Pawnee, never fell for him. Was all of that, the last several weeks, was it worth the physical pain she felt in her heart and her chest now? Would it feel worth it when she was curled into a ball on the shower floor, unable to get back up because goddamnit, why should she? Why should she have to live with this kind of pain?
For the first time, she started to feel real regret for being with Ben. Both of them would have been happier now if they left it at just friends. Neither would have gotten that first taste, neither would have fallen in too deep, neither of them would be drowning right now and struggling to pick themselves up off the floor.
It was nearly four in the morning by the time Leslie crawled back into bed, and Mark's arms instinctively tightened around her.
"Leslie?" he whispered, just barely awake. "What is it?"
She had cupped his cheek and curled into him, in a way she hardly ever did anymore. She pressed a long kiss to his lips, a kiss where she tried to feel something, a kiss to distract from everything else, to bring her back to the Leslie Knope that would do anything for Mark Brendanawicz, because even that version of Leslie wasn't hurting as badly as the current one.
She pulled away and looked Mark in the eyes. "Yes," she said.
His brows furrowed. "Yes?"
Leslie nodded. "My answer is yes. I will marry you."