A/N: Got a prompt from an anon last night that I couldn't help but write immediately. Requested on tumblr as "April returns from maternity leave after having Roberta and deals with missing her daughter."

It got a little weird at the end, but it felt like the natural progression for some reason. Enjoy!

In the weeks leading up to April return from maternity leave, the last thing she would ever expect - even all the way up through the pregnancy - was that she was going to miss being around Roberta. Sure, she didn't want to go to work on a regular basis but that was because Ron seemed like he was threatening to leave and let April take over every single day. That sounded like too much responsibility, even for a mother, to handle.

"Babe, she'll just be at daycare," Andy explained, staring at the little girl on April's lap and smiling. "She'll be fine."

"I know she'll be fine, but I'm gonna miss this," April said with a small smile as Roberta bounced on her knee and kept laughing that same adorable squeak. "I'm gonna hate it. Every single second I'm not around you, Bug."

When she looked back up Andy had that same look on his face whenever she acted like this. He always called her a big softie at heart, but April usually refused that and called him an idiot. Now she was sitting there holding her daughter's hands, bouncing her around just to elicit that laugh, and she couldn't find an excuse. In all honesty she didn't give a shit about excuses.

No one told her that a kid could be fun. They always seemed like gigantic messes and a massive financial burden that might not be worth it, and while she was definitely a mess and cost so much money already April just kept thinking about Andy teaching her guitar and she could teach her how to properly prank a phone call or show her the best ways to sneak into City Hall. There were some hallways with minimal camera coverage.

"Well, I gotta go... like an hour ago, babe," he said, leaning down to give April a kiss and then leave one on Roberta's forehead.

"Yeah, love ya," she said, looking down at the small figure. "Yeah."

She remembered reading something about mothers feeling like their kids were strangers and having an emotional disconnect from them, but April from the day they brought her home to now three months later after her extended leave that no one argued with her over couldn't imagine that for the world. There were just so many things to be done in the day that she'd do with Roberta. Who cared about a little stroller when they had Andy's weird chest-strap thing and she could go to the grocery store with a miniature human strapped to her.

It was kind of hilarious that she had this much responsibility over a human being, too. At least, up until the part where she remembered that it was a tiny human and she couldn't just ignore her ever. Either way, she was going to have to drop her off at daycare soon and April could only feel a hollow emptiness in her chest.

What made it worse was when she opened up the door to the Pawnee branch of the Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Center for Babies she watched Roberta's little smile that always seemed plastered on fade when April turned to leave. April swore she heard crying but didn't think about it because if she let it continue to bury itself in her she'd cry on her way to work and that just wasn't happening.

That first day was hell.

"Mrs. Ludgate-Dwyer?" a voice answered through the conference call.

"Sorry, what?" April was still leaning into her hand and trying to remember the question. "Oh, yeah sure... I'll forward the questions to Ron."

April then hung up the call, not caring that she still had another plethora of folders to read off and remember not to burn immediately instead. She just couldn't get that little face, a sudden understanding there when April turned to leave, out of her head and it was driving April insane. The whole object permanence thing was starting to show in their daughter and watching her mother leave her probably wasn't the healthiest thing.

Then again, all this worry April had couldn't be healthy either. So she closed her office door and walked out of the department past curious looks from the new intern and Ron, uncaring about either of them when she went down to the parking lot. When she drove to the daycare she unceremoniously removed her daughter, who gave another bright smile that only young children had, and made a quick stop at home to get the chest strap and a stroller.

When she returned to work an hour later, a baby across her chest, no one said a word and, suddenly, she felt better.

"Babe, you can't just not drop her off without telling anybody," Andy told her a week later when he stopped by for lunch.

"Why not? She's my kid," April looked over at the sturdy little stroller and the sleeping face there.

"Aww," Andy's face broke into a smile and he couldn't stop staring at April.

"What? Stop being weird," April deflected, or thought she did.

"You really did miss her," Andy scooted across the little table in the City Hall courtyard. "I didn't realize you'd do this though, honey."

"Yeah, well you didn't have to see her that first day I left her," she shrugged and took a bite of her sandwich before continuing. "She looked so sad and tiny and, ugh, it was depressing."

"Well, I gotta call the daycare and tell them she's not coming back," Andy laughed and turned his phone on, "because there's only so many panicked calls from Ms. Healy I can take."

April smiled and turned to the little stroller, still smiling and watching that little pudgy face no longer creased in a smile. She was too worried about sleeping, her hand stuck in her mouth, to give a damn about anything else. That blaise lack of care about everything around her made babies kind of cool to April, which was just another of her coping mechanisms for giving a shit about something so tiny and adorable and dependent on her.

Walking into the conference room, April expected the groans to come and thankfully they didn't. This was the second month of Roberta coming to work with her and, now that Andy solved the issue of a woman losing her mind because she thought she lost one of her wards, things felt better. April spent days in conference calls with herself muted and playing with her daughter's little hands and whispering Neutral Milk Hotel lyrics to her.

When she was better at speaking, April would teach her how to answer the phone. That would be amazing. As her presentation wrapped up, a hand shot up in the back and that same stupid intern - the one with the weird hair, April couldn't remember his name - looked eager to say something.

"Yes, idiot?" April announced, pointing to him.

"It's Jimmy, Ms. Ludgate," he explained and he looked insulted, "but why is there a zoning issue near Lot 52? There's just-"

"A dog park just next to it, and a waste dump right next to that," she interrupted him, annoyed at his confident lack of knowledge. "Look, that is an unsafe location for that park and we have to move one or the other. It would take too much time to get rid of the waste dump, so we should just move the dog park to 52."

"Wouldn't that be expensive-?"

"52's already been set up for some sort of park," April explained, getting more and more agitated. "There's already turf there and it was just in the interim between getting slides or staying a grassy thing."

"What about the current-"

"It's Deputy Director Ludgate-Dwyer, by the way, and you already seem like someone who isn't going to make it very far here," April said to the whole of the meeting. Ron just sat in the back, face unmoving. "I think you'd be better served in sanitation. I'll call your advisors and let them know."

There was a deathly silence after that, no one saying anything at all. When the lights turned back on, no longer dimmed, people filed out save for April and Ron. She gathered up a folder and looked down to see Roberta yawning herself awake and trying to squirm her arms out of the chest strap. Ron stood up and walked over to her with that same even-handed look that April was beginning to get too used to.

Some part of her missed the Ron that was grooming her into becoming an incredibly inefficient government employee. There weren't as many non-talks and definitely-not-exchanges between them, and April knew it was bound to happen. She actually cared a miniscule bit about her job - really it was barely anything at all, she obviously didn't care about work at all - so Ron could see his influence slipping. Maybe that put him off.

"I wasn't sure about your new stance on professionalism," Ron said slowly, interrupting her material gathering. "To be honest, I think you'll still get bored of this attempt at caring about government work. Maybe it's Leslie's influence, who knows, but I think it'll pass."

April just bit her cheek and avoided his gaze until he put his hand on her shoulder.

"Either way, I can't really think of anyone better to run this stupid little hole-in-the-wall department," he finally said with a small movement of his lips that she knew was his smile.

Trying not to overthink it, April just unstrapped Roberta and put her in the stroller nearer the door. Something about walking around the conference room with her gave a special kind of confidence. Normally April didn't really care about any of that stuff but with her child near her all April could do was imagine herself as an elder for a tribe of warrior-women. The strongest mothers could stand in front of the others, in this case talking about dog parks, while the rest looked on.

She liked thinking of it like that instead of the way that it honestly was more like: watching people look at her like she was insane for doing this. Whatever, there was some lady in Europe that did basically the same thing, so April could do it too.

Instead of answering him, April put her arms awkwardly around Ron in what was probably the closest hug they had. It felt odd because, and April just realized it, this was the first of a few goodbyes before he left the department for good. He wouldn't be coming back and he'd spend the rest of his life in solitude with his family. That made April smile though, avoiding the prickling in the backs of her eyes.

Remember, no crying. She had to remember that.

"Thanks, Ron," she told him as flatly as she could. "I'll... see you around."

"Probably not," he nodded and made to leave the conference room.

Before he left, though, he leaned down and made a strange goo-goo noise at Roberta and April could hear a squeal of excitement in response. Smiling, April watched him not even bother to hide the display to her. When the door closed she finally let go.

Roberta started crying not long after, unsure why her mother was doing the same.

"So, I guess he's making me director," April explained to Andy at home, Roberta against his chest and playing April's finger.

"That could be cool, right?" Andy tried, smiling. "It's probably a lot of work and stuff, but it'll be awesome."

"Yeah, but it's gonna be weird, y'know?" she said, focusing on Roberta instead of how bummed this promotion was making her. "I dunno, it's stupid."

"No, it's not. Babe, it's awesome that you're thinking about all this stuff," Andy was still grinning and April couldn't but respond in kind and put her head on his shoulder. "You'll be the best at it, too. Hey, you can still talk to Leslie. She'll be, like, your boss still."

"Technically," April sighed and realized something. "Though I'm gonna be the first woman Director of the Pawnee Parks Department instead of her."

She moved off of his shoulder and looked at Andy. They both immediately laughed and Roberta made the same squealing noise that they couldn't get enough of. After they eased off, April returned to her position on Andy's shoulder and realized how freaking awesome everything around her was.

She didn't hate her job, she got to see her daughter every single day at work and play with her during and afterward, and Andy. There was always Andy, and he was like this oafish constant that never stopped supporting her. April turned her head on his shoulder and looked up at him, watching him stare down at Roberta with the most incredible, excited look on his face. It somehow made everything better.

"Love you," April said suddenly. "Thanks for being the best husband."

"You're the best wife," he answered back, smiling still and waiting for her to. "I love you too."

And she couldn't repress the curl of her lips in response.