A/N: Despite the fact that Cut isn't the name of the series this extends anymore, I'm not gonna start using another acronym when I don't have to. Y'all know what AU this stems from.

Either way, this was an anonymous request from a while ago that I never got around to before. Changed it a little, tiny bit but the idea is hopefully still there!

April isn't really sure why the idea of a kid is suddenly in her mind, or why she's thinking about it. Really thinking about what it would be like, but she's barely out of school and things have been less than stable in her life for so long it's weird to even consider it. But she is. They still live in the matchbox of an apartment, and Andy's only getting some money from his gigs when he remembers to ask for his share from Burly, and Indianapolis is so much more expensive than she ever expected.

But she keeps thinking about what it might be like and she always comes to the same conclusion: if she had to struggle to find a reason to get out of bed every day, what the hell would she be doing to a child? She would ruin it, destroy its life, even if part of her thinks that Andy would be the greatest dad in the world.

So, despite everything that tells her to talk to him, she ignores the feeling and lets it build inside her.

It gets so bad that, one day, she's sitting alone above the bar in bed daydreaming about a little girl. A little girl that has Andy's vibrant eyes and his laugh. She'd be a beautiful child just because Andy couldn't possibly make an ugly baby, and maybe April would be able to be okay at raising her. Though that would mean she would be a mother - a child would be dependent on her in almost every single way, from pregnancy to birth and she'd have to be able to do that - and she couldn't just shirk that duty, ever.

Now it just scares April to think about it. Somewhere she thinks Andy has the same thoughts, and he definitely thinks about marrying her because it's all he ever talks about anymore, and everything collectively frightens her. It feels real, it seems to be actually happening to her, but she's convinced this happiness will fade.

April just assumes that she'll be alone in a year, no matter what Andy says, and things will be better. They'll make more sense.

A year later, it's still frightening when she sees him standing in front of a bunch of friends and family while she walks in that absurd dress. April assumed that if she had made it to this point - every step of the way, from the proposal to the planning, figuring it all to be a dream - they would do it on a whim with no flair. There wouldn't be any flourish, but that would be okay because that would be them, but now she kind of likes the circumstances.

He's a little too fancy looking for her liking, but he never takes his eyes off of her and he's barely breathing. Even if she still wasn't comfortable in her skin, he tried - he tried his hardest, and it was all just to make her happy - and she loves him for it. It's why she doesn't run away, and they say a bunch of silly way-too-romantic things to each other calling them "vows," and it's why she's smiling through their kiss.

She marries Andy, knowing him for what feels like her entire life. Or, rather, the entirety of the life she didn't think she was going to live to see, a life that, in part, Andy had helped to keep safe. She likes that feeling, and likes the way her name fits against his just like the ring on her finger.

The thoughts come back one day in the middle of working on a commission. The client is a needy, whiny idiot that doesn't actually know what he wants, so April has to design and re-design and rework everything for him.

"How's work, babe?" Andy asks her, sitting across from her at the table in the small Pawnee home.

He asks the question every day for what feels like hours on end, but she can't blame him. What else is he going to ask her? He might ask her why she always gets touchy when he mentions how cute a family of three looks walking around their son, but he doesn't.

"This guy has no idea what he wants," she complains, tapping the trackpad way too hard, "one minute it's this font, the next he wants a different one and three new features, and now he's obsessed with the color scheme but has no clue about color theory."

"That sucks," he says, not sure what else to provide.

"Yes, it's like dealing with a child," she scoffs.

Andy leaves to go to practice with the band, everyone having moved back when he wanted to find a place for them to live. Of course, Pawnee was cheap and small and they already knew the whole town all too well so it was an easy call to just go back home. April, however, stops when she says that sentence and that's when it hits her again. She's dealt with people like that tens of times already taht week and all of them were equally as annoying.

Still, she had never complained about them like she was now. Something else was there, and she knew it, and it made her absentmindedly itch her forearm despite nothing being there anymore. She had years of physical freedom, but every once and a while she would scratch without realizing it. Then Andy gives her a weird look and she laughs it off, because they both know that never happens.

But then she thinks about where her life is - what her life is - and how quickly things are approaching something somewhat like normalcy. They were actually married and it was kind of weird, on top of that, that they had been through so much. Both of them knew how to handle arguments and how to talk to each other about their problems, and Andy doesn't know how observant he can be when he returns later.

"You wanna talk?" he asks her, sitting down next to her.

She's still working on the same site and ready to break down into furious rants over IM at the client. It's comforting that he asks her that, but when she turns to talk to him his face is clearly not concerned about her work. He's been around her far too long to just let something so massive on her shoulders go past him.

"About what?" she returns for no reason other than to temper the anger that might get unjustly redirected at him.

"I dunno, you just seemed kinda weird this morning," he folds his hands and looks down. "Dunno, a little too familiar y'know? Not about work, but it was like you had something else on your mind."

"Yeah," she admits, turning to him.

"Yeah?" his voice is a little frightened and she understands why.

He definitely has the right to be frightened, even if this time it's not as dire as this sort of conversation would have started out years ago. Now she was just considering the prospect of wanting to have a child. No big deal.

"Andy, d'you ever think about kids?" she offers immediately, not wanting to circle around the subject too long.

"You mean like...?" he trails off, uncertain.

"Yeah, like us. Y'know, having one," she explains to him. "I mean it's stupid and scary and neither of us will be able to do it. But you will, I mean. You'll be the best-"

"I totally wanna do that," he interrupts, his eyes so excited and they're screaming Andy to her.

"Yeah?" she says slowly, rubbing her arms again.

"Listen to me, babe," he takes hold of her hands and stills them on her arms, "I don't know what you're thinking. You don't have to tell me, you know that, but if you think you're gonna be anything other than the most awesome mom ever then you're the dumbest person I've ever known."

"But I am thinking that," she pulls away from him, incensed a bit at how he assumed a few words would just make everything better.

"Sorry, I didn't mean... y'know what I did mean that," he stops himself, chuckling. "April, you are so smart and somehow you managed to get us a house here and you're always right about so much. This, though, you're wrong about."

"Andy-"

"No, you - we've - been through so much crap," he's still holding onto her hands and April's starting to wonder what her real hesitations were, "and we always get through it. Our kid would be the coolest ever, and you'd be so good at being their mom."

"You'd be a super good dad," she mumbles, a small smile emerging on her lips. "I wanna see you teach our kid how to ride a bike, and how to play guitar-"

"And everything I do to make them goofy like me, you can make them really smart like you," his eyes are so intent on following hers that it forces April to meet his gaze. "And if it's a girl she'll be beautiful like you, and smart like you, and brave and awesome like you."

April can't really hide the smile anymore and she knows he's just trying to comfort her. It works though, but then when has it failed her? When has he failed her? She can't honestly think of a time, and it's what makes her nod her head and bite her lip in anticipation of his response. Naturally, he lifts her up and shouts like he was going to from the start. It's all she expects from him - that jubilant, carefree, and somehow supportive Andy he always had been - and he doesn't disappoint.