A/N: Yo hey, hi there! I wanted to take a short break and I'll be back on regular schedule next week, but for now take this slice of angst.

Taken from a request and combined with a relatively throwaway 'shot in Ch.70

The party was unremarkable. Ben said she had to be there for reasons that were basically pointless, but April still went. It was better than sitting around in the apartment, watching TV, and pretending that she doesn't miss Andy. April won't ever admit how much she loved that stuffed animal, or how often she fell asleep clutching the dog like it was everything she had. At least with work she doesn't have to sit around and think so much.

Andy was the kind of person that sat around and listened to her babble at him, sometimes up until four in the morning, and just did that - he listened. She would tell everyone else that they were drinking until that hour and having sex so that no one knew April, cold calloused April, could be anything other than that. So she goes to the house a few blocks away, telling herself it's because Ben's her boss and not everything else running through her mind.

The party's as loud and unexciting as she expected, save for the reason that made her drive back to the apartments in a hurry with staggering breaths.

"Ben," April pushed the door to his office closed quickly.

She rushed into work that morning, hands tired from gripping the three-legged dog, and tried to come to terms with the previous night. It was a mistake, she knew it, but every time April thought about it she got sick to her stomach.

"Look, I told you I'm not writing fanfiction-"

"Shut up, I need to talk," April interrupted with a sneer before softening slightly. "This is really important, and you're... kinda the only person here that'll know what the hell I'm saying."

"That's very flattering," Ben answered with a sarcastic sigh.

"Last night I did something stupid," she said without looking directly at him.

"Just because you don't like these functions doesn't mean-"

"I cheated on Andy," she rushed out before it was gone forever and all April would want was making fun of Ben.

The office is quiet after that and Ben's face loses the dumb smirk that he has for silent staring. His eyes widened and looked like he was going to say something before April quickly ran out of there. Sitting back against the door, falling to the floor, April thought how stupid it was. The only person that mattered was Andy - he was literally the only person that made her smile unironically - and that stupid, stupid party...

April bought a ticket on the taxi to the airport, telling Ben she has to go home for a week.

Flying wasn't always April's favorite thing if only because she had so much time to sit down and think. It was a dangerous thing, just there and alone with her thoughts, that April knew to shut all of them out in favor for randomly selecting passengers and making up facts about them. She could make fun of people all flight if it meant never actually sitting there and thinking about how little of a thing it was but how it changed everything at the same time.

Instead of thinking how much of a failure she was, April could look at the guy two rows ahead of her with the bushy beard and tiny hat. He was a mime running from the cops in D.C. because he was framed for murdering someone with finger guns.

Then, she'd look down and put the stuffed animal back in her lap. Cradling it there, April wondered how he'd react. If there was anything in the world that could break Andy it was this - no matter how insignificant it could be, or how blown out of proportion she was making it, this wasn't just something that gets swept under the carpet. That thought alone, picturing his big grin faltering if only for a second, made April sit in the airplane bathroom for a while longer than necessary.

She can't think of any funny fictional characters anymore. When she sat back down all April wanted to do was stare at the little Champion stand-in and try not to think. Thinking always meant digging too deep, picturing him and his face, and then she'd let things get out of control. Things would be out of her hands and April didn't even like admitting that she cried about it, let alone doing it in a semi-public place.

Unlocking the front door proved harder than normal, walking in from the early flight to wake up Andy at eleven in the morning on a Friday. He was sleeping in their bed - their bed - and he looked so ignorant of what she had to tell him. Sadly the dog was in her luggage or she'd be holding onto the thing like a lifeline.

"Babe, wake up!" she shouted at him, Andy propping himself up on his elbows with that same, dumb face of exhaustion on.

"Hey April," he mumbled, putting his head back on the pillow before doing a double-take. "April!"

He shot out of bed, running over to the doorway and picking her up without a second thought. She swung around twice and both times thought to herself that she didn't deserve any of this. When he let her down she meant to say something, to get him to stop, but he kissed her and April can't help but lean into it.

If she had sat down to think about that - just doing it and just leaning into it - she would have broken down on the spot.

Waking up a few hours later, April brushed Andy's hand off of her and sat up. Just like that, when she thought that there was something important there, April shrugged it all off and just slept with Andy. That wasn't the problem, and she knew it, but it made her think.

Thinking hurt, just like looking over at Andy asleep with his mouth half-open and tired hurt her.

April got out of bed and dug through her luggage for the stuffed animal and made her way back into bed. There she curled into a ball, away from Andy, and buried the thing in her chest as far as it would go. Smashed against her, the dog felt more real than everything that was happening around her and April wished she could close her eyes and wake up in a world where she didn't make this mistake that was going to eat her alive from the inside.

She always knew she wasn't worth the time and effort Andy put in, but April went with it anyways. He made her smile and laugh, two things she comically loathed but internalized as not worth faking, and she hadn't ever had something like that before. Now she did something that basically threw all of that away.

"Hey," a sleepy voice broke through her thoughts and a large, warm body snuggled closer to her.

At least he was a relatively heavy sleeper when she was around, April thought, because otherwise he would feel her shiver with each tiny, light sob.

"Andy," she interrupted his loud chewing the next day.

They sat on the couch and stared at the TV through blurry eyes, just like old times, and April knew she had to say something. Otherwise the week would pass and she'd wake up early every day so that she could hide the redness of her eyes and nose. He wasn't allowed to see her like that, even if Andy knew she thought like this sometimes and sometimes things got out of hand in her mind he still wasn't allowed to see her like this. That usually meant Andy would frown and look like he did something wrong and she couldn't let that stand.

"What's up?" he asked without looking at her, his eyes still stuck to the TV.

"This is kind of important," April muttered, putting her hand on his arm over her shoulder.

He looked over and must have recognized the look because the TV is turned off not long after that. His hands seem extra warm and comforting that day which only made things worse for April.

"You're not gonna ask me why I just popped up out of the blue from Washington?" she asked him first, tentatively.

"No, I'm just super glad you're here," he punctuated with a light kiss.

"Don't... just don't freak out, okay?" April started with, trying to figure out the words.

"Sure!" he answered with a wide grin and bright eyes, just like she knew he would.

If there was anything that Andy was good at, it was being a font of cheer and excitement that she honestly needed. Maybe not in that moment, right when she was going to tell him, but April needed someone like that and she knew it. On top of everything else that made her irrationally love the manchild in front of her, there was his overwhelming positivism.

His smile was just like the one she pictured fading away, falling down his face until he looked at her like she was a parasite. It was the inevitable conclusion of these things, and April always wondered when that day would come, so now she got to sit there and think about everything. Thinking. It always hurt, and it always showed. That's why thinking about all of this, all at once, made April look down and squint away any wetness in her eyes.

"I... I did something really stupid," she admitted, looking back up.

"What?" Andy asked, scooting closer with one hand moving up to her face. "Babe, whatever you did it's not worth crying-"

"I cheated on you, okay?"

His hand stopped on her face and April immediately regretted saying it. The childlike glee, the absolutely perfect way he'd smile at just about anything she did or said, and his comfort weren't there for a split second. None of it was in his eyes there, nothing but hurt. At least April only had to think about it, and herself, where Andy was staring at this revelation straight in the eyes.

"Oh," is all he said, leaning back into the couch with a heavy thud.

They sit like that for a few minutes and April doesn't know how to follow up on that at all. She doesn't even want to, to be honest. She just wanted to take it back - everything - and be back to them. Eventually he turns on the couch and sits up facing her.

"Did... d'you want to be actual divorced?" he asked with an exasperated sigh, his look so not-Andy that April hated it.

"Andy..."

"I mean, if you wanted to be with someone else that's okay," Andy smiled a little, so fake and put-on that April wanted to smack him. "I just want you to be-"

"Don't fucking say that," April interrupted harsher than she intended, her hands shaking when she pointed at him. "Don't say that it would make me happy."

"But you-"

"It was an accident," she tried to explain.

"How do you accidentally sleep with someone?" Andy asked quietly, intending it to be a joke but giving no humor in his eyes.

"I didn't sleep with anyone," April mumbled. "He just kissed me and I didn't stop him."

"Sure," Andy nodded. "But if you didn't stop him, did you want it?"

"No," April said immediately. "I don't want it, I didn't want any of it... I just couldn't think straight and it happened so fast."

"Y'know, I sorta expected this," Andy chuckled darkly and looked away. "Not, like, you cheating or anything. Just... moving on."

"I'm not-"

"If that's what you want, that's okay as long as you're-"

April shut him up with a kiss, bridging the gap just so he wouldn't say it. The very idea of being happy without Andy around her was stupid. When she had been alone and afraid of everything, afraid and hiding it behind lashes of hate and misanthropy, Andy did his best to break through all that and just make her smile. Now he was sitting there with a consigned sigh that told her he was thinking all of this. Even if he was the happy-go-lucky one, she knew he wasn't immune to any of this.

No one was, so it only made some amount of sense he told her all that. What didn't make sense was him believing any of it. Perhaps she was a bit hypocritical for telling herself that he wasn't allowed to believe any of it, and yet she was, but April didn't care about being correct here.

"Don't say that," April said slowly, holding his face.

"How're we supposed to deal with this?" he asked seriously.

"I wish I could take it all back, because I feel like I betrayed you-"

"He kissed you, that's what you said right?" Andy stopped her, a sudden realization dawning on him. "He started it, right?"

"That's not how it works, babe," April laughed lightly. "I told you, I didn't stop him..."

"But you're here," Andy said softly, a real smile there. "You're here in Pawnee and not there with whoever this guy is."

"I probably shouldn't tell anyone who he is, should I?" April laughed. "Andy I came here to tell you this, and because I missed you."

"That's why you didn't cheat on me," he said matter-of-factly.

"But I-"

"Everyone fucks up," Andy shrugged his shoulders. "The part that makes you awesome is telling you that, but you won't listen. I know you April, and if you wanted anything else you'd be gone."

April stopped talking, stopped moving, hell she might have stopped breathing when those words came out of his mouth. There were a handful of times, only a few, that Andy made it obvious how much he knew and how important she was to him. If she was connecting that to what she said earlier, April would have started crying at the idea that he cared so much and she made it seem like she didn't every single day. Instead she leaned forward and kissed him again.

There were some things that needed saying, but this wasn't one of them. April couldn't ever say to Andy how it felt for him to accept her mistakes and move on from them, even if he thought she wasn't party in making that mistake, so she would just keep kissing him and telling Andy that she loved everything about him.

The stuffed dog, the hole where one leg used to be, sits on her desk in Washington and in Pawnee until the thing falls apart. It's the only time that Larry compliments her and she returns it with an unironic smile before she makes fun of him.

Some things don't need to be said, and should just be thought, but this isn't one of them.