A/N: This sort of a "check-up" on Start of Something Beautiful (formerly known as Cut, thus the name), looking forward a few years.

This was originally part of this fic, under the title Cut, but is now moved out to another fic (Start of Something Beautiful) that you can find on my profile! Sorry for any confusion.

I'm not sure how I want to do these continuities, and whether or not they go in chronological order after this one is totally in the air, but I had a jolt of an idea with this one. Anyways, remember that you can always talk to me - and let me be honest when I say it's the best thing ever when I get any messages - but I really would love to see more prompts/requests from you guys! This is as much about you as it as about me writing, so don't hesitate to send anything in to my tumblr (anotheropti on tumblr!)

Enjoy!

4:13 AM

His phone reads, and Andy can feel the woman beside him rolling around in her sleep. Each night he spent by her he could feel her become restless at night, sometimes staying up when he had already drifted off, and most of the time he would wake up by himself and find her watching TV by herself and slowly eating cereal at six in the morning. He knew that April had nightmares, and he'd been there for a few of them by now, but she rarely ever moved so much. By the way her hands balled up into fists and the way she looked – distressed, fighting – Andy stopped listening to the side of him that was told not to wake her up during those dreams.

"Hey babe," he grabbed her shoulder to stabilize her, "hey babe, wake up."

Andy shook her a little and after a few seconds of coercion April blinked her eyes open, chest heaving with labored breaths. Andy hated seeing her like that, hated feeling powerless against it, but the only thing he could do – like he'd done for years at this point – was be around and try his best. Thankfully, when April had calmed her breathing and focused on the room, she laid back down and fell back into a relatively restful sleep. Andy didn't get much sleep himself that night, but that was okay since April had classes tomorrow anyways and he could just pass out during the day.

He doesn't hesitate to pull her right next to him when she falls back asleep though.

3:39 AM

This time Andy woke up and found her sitting in the corner of the miniscule apartment, curled up around herself with her knees brought to her chest and arms wrapped around them, giving the ground a quiet, stoic stare. Rubbing his eyes and standing up, Andy walked over to her and sat down next to her with his back against the cold windowsill facing out to the Indianapolis streets.

Sometimes she walked around, other times she would sit down and think to herself. Andy hated that he never caught all of those moments simply because she was too quiet to wake him up and he always asked her why she wouldn't just come to him. He partially believed that she didn't trust him with whatever was in her head, despite everything they'd been through by that point, and he was also afraid of the nature of her thoughts and what they were telling her about him – the lies that he knew April could conjure up in her mind and convince herself were truths.

"Morning," he mumbled still half-asleep and slipping his hand into April's.

They'd been together for two years and counting and April had been hesitant to ask Andy to go with her when she decided to go to college, but it was the easiest decision he'd made in his life. Mouserat had been on a steady decline and he was getting bored of being in Pawnee anyways, so he willingly moved with her into the shoebox apartment she found the first week of ad hunting. Andy had learned how to read April's swings pretty well by this point and knew that the only role he could provide for her was to be constant and there for her, which was probably the easiest job he ever had.

In response to Andy's words, April turned to look at him and had the same self-defeating, weak glare in her eyes that he knew too well. He hated seeing her in that state, feeling like she was alone and searching for something. She stopped for a moment, her bottom lip trembling a bit, and then she moved Andy's arm over her shoulder and buried herself in his chest. They sat like that for a while, warming each other in the cold Indiana morning. Andy learned quickly that April didn't like to talk when that happened to her and she woke up paralyzed with fear and doubt.

It wasn't any easier for her, and Andy knew that, but if he could at least try then it didn't matter.

"Love you," she whispered to him in the dark corner, mumbling against his shirt as she nuzzled him gently.

"Love ya too," he answered, rubbing her arm gently and standing up.

Andy usually managed to guide her back to bed for the night, and that night she went back to sleep clutching Andy's hand in a death grip. He knew he'd wake up with a few extra cuts on his hands and probably end up with a scar or two from it but he figured those weren't anything in comparison to the scars April had. One hand entwined with hers, and his other arm wrapped protectively around her stomach, Andy hoped against all hope that she'd just fall asleep peacefully.

6:00 AM

April's alarm fired on all cylinders at the exact second, waking Andy whether he wanted to be up or not. Shifting around, he felt April stand up and make her way to the shared closet. Andy knew that sometimes she still felt self-conscious about what she'd done to herself when she was a teenager, so when she grabbed her clothes quickly and walked into the tiny bathroom he stood up and ignored the aching sensation in his gut and walked to the curtain they had instead of a door.

"C'mon April, I gotta go," he mumbled. "It'll be like five seconds, but babe I seriously gotta go."

If he wanted to be honest, Andy missed when she would lazily dress in front of him in the morning and blush or make fun of him for watching. At first he felt creepy but then she'd smile at him while she slipped her underwear on and Andy felt like she was a little happier – he had that same feeling of watching April go out in the day feeling better about herself, and her body.

"Ew dude, I'm changing," she said back to him through the thin walls and barely closed curtain. "Go away, please."

"You're just getting dressed," he said and pulled open the sliding plastic.

April immediately moved her pile of clothes to cover herself and Andy tried not to look at her arms, like he was insinuating something and accusing her of another relapse, so he just moved forward and did his business. Exiting the bathroom he wondered what was taking her so long, moving back to listen through the thin plastic for any worrying signs. Instead he just shifting fabric and sliding jeans, slow movements but nothing that should have alarmed Andy. When she exited she was wearing the same shirt from the day before and a slack pair of jeans, hair messy and greasy from rolling around in bed with him the previous night. As a result of her anxieties, Andy learned that April still had issues with her own body that extended into her adult life – yet another part of her that drove him crazy just thinking about it, while she regularly tried to hide herself from him. She was busying herself with her hair, tying it up so that she didn't have to worry about it during classes as much, and Andy tried to figure out anything to tell her.

"Hey, you look great," he told her when she grabbed her laptop case and started for the door. "Like, everyday, but I really like the… the thing you did with your hair."

Andy considered it a victory when she touched the pulled up hair gently, gave him that shy smile of hers, and left him with a quick kiss before leaving.

3:34 PM – Same day

Andy only gets work at the bar they live above a few nights out of the week, so that day he spent the majority of it sitting around and trying to write a song. He missed music more than anything else from Pawnee, but he couldn't find anybody around him that had any of his same tastes and most of the time he went to practices and auditions being asked to play some crappy indie tunes or if he'd be willing to scream instead of sing.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, plucking at the strings and slowly getting more and more agitated that nothing was coming out, he saw April enter the apartment in a hurry. Her hair was a mess and she was carrying a stack of papers underneath her arm, huffing her way over to the bed and shoving the papers into Andy's lap.

"Dude, look what I found all over the walls downstairs," she pointed to an ad on the first flier – a bunch of bands and then one little opening act at the bottom with a logo he remembered fondly.

"I didn't know Burly was still playing," he chuckled and looked at the dumb Mouserat name emblazoned underneath a bunch of illegible nonsense and a few bands he recognized from auditions. "I thought the band just sort of split up."

"Oh and I called him, and he moved out here a few weeks ago to see what it'd be like and," April was talking quickly, something that rarely happened and only when she was verging on excitement, "and he's totally into you guys getting back together. Like, the band."

"Wait, he wants me back in?" Andy asked, unsure.

April nodded excitedly and he had to look back down to the posters to really come to grips with what was in front of him. When they split, it was mostly because Andy felt that everyone else was putting in the bare minimum when they wrote songs and performed. To him they were his best friends but at the same time they barely ever wrote songs, until they told him that he never let them write songs and abandoned him. Now it sounded like he had a second shot at getting back together with some of the grade school friendships he'd burned in a fit of insane, small town ego.

Andy didn't know what else to do other than stand up, take April's face in his hands, and lean down to give her a kiss. It was quick and sloppy, and Andy knew his lips would be a little sore from pushing his lips against hers so hard, but he couldn't stop himself. Afterwards he picked her up by the waist and spun her around, thankful for her height when she barely grazed her head on the low-ceiling.

"April, you are the best person in the entire universe," he said quickly. "Man, I gotta call him. D'you have his new number because his old one isn't working and, and I think I have Saturday off and maybe we can jam again…"

At some point Andy should have realized that April wasn't listening to him. She was too busy smiling at his first sentence, taking his hands, and pushing down onto the bed. It didn't take long for him to get the hint, pushing himself out of his shorts.