A/N: Requested as another full bit on April and Ron's friendship. More explicitly April/Andy than the last one, as well.
Set at "some point" during S2. You know, my favorite time to write - some obscure, unknown point in time that we all vaguely remember!
Throughout the day, April does even less work than usual. Someone must have noticed by now, but no one says a word of it to her. At one point Ron gave her a sidelong glance that she picked up on, making him quickly turn back to looking at his monitor as if he was actually reading it. Later in the day, just a few minutes before she was technically supposed to be off work, April wants to stay latched to that chair. It would be much easier to do this at home, behind a few closed and preferably locked doors, but moving is too hard.
Sitting there, feeling almost dead and completely listless, April doesn't bother to look up at Ron leaving his office for the day. She could've grabbed her jacket and bag and left hours ago, but instead sits there trying to figure out which part of Andy she hates the most at that second. Right then it's how blind he can be. She hates how he can look at her and not notice that she's a second from slapping him, kissing him, or both. Ron, noticing her still there and not taking yet another sanctioned - by him - early day, clears his throat awkwardly.
"Mmm," she murmurs. Words are too hard right now.
Ron takes a step forward, stops and looks sideways at her. Groaning, he stops. "You do know that you can leave now, April," he gestures at the doors.
"Mmm," she repeats, trying to figure out if she really does hate how blind he can be. The other side of that is how Andy can sometimes be incredibly selfless and how he sacrifices what little he has to help his friends, even Tom. "Sure," she finally says.
"Good," Ron adds without looking back at her.
April doesn't move though. Her foot taps a little and she pushes aside a few small notepads of paper, staring at her phone and then back to the pads. He could be an idiot sometimes, a lot of the time really, but was that really a big deal? She could probably tell him the next day, straight to his face, and he wouldn't have heard her but was that really his fault? April was never very good at communicating things to other people - like Ron, who was still standing in front of her desk. He sighs loudly and takes a step closer to her desk.
Other than a few seconds of ringing, that April ignores completely, there's silence afterwards. As if he was expecting her to say something, Ron stands idly in that same spot. Rooted there, April finally looks up.
"You will..." Ron sighs again, looking down at the floor, "you will be fine."
She gives him a curious look but Ron just shakes his head. Something about him saying that, even just that little bit because of course Ron would only say a tiny bit to her, felt nice. For the first time that day she felt good. Not great, but a little bit better.
"Never mind," he says before making to turn around. She definitely heard his words, though.
"Thanks," April mutters.
He stops and his shoulders visibly fall like they've been loosened of some tightness or stress. April doesn't know why, but what he said - what little Ron said - was comforting. She picks up her things, locking her phone and shoving it into her pocket, before getting up to follow him out of the department. They leave for the parking lot separately, just like April knows Ron wants. No one needs to see which direction he leaves after the lot.
This time it's because Andy's the worst person she's ever met. That's what she decides after lunch, at least.
When she goes back to her desk, Ron must notice the same blank look on her face because he sits on her desk and looks like he's about to dole out some fatherly advice. Instead he just nods and looks uncomfortable again. People must be looking because he quickly shifts away. Later, though, when it's after work and they're the only two other than Leslie there Ron just gives her that same, understanding look.
"You'll be fine," he repeats that day.
Somehow he remembers that's what she needed to hear a week or so back. April didn't even really remember that's what he said until she was halfway to her car and thinking to herself about how much she hates him.
Or, maybe, she doesn't. At lunch, April actually says they should go out sometime. She doesn't say the word, "date" and she never explicitly says they should "go out." Now that she thinks about it, all she said was that they should do this more. This being, of course, sitting at the shoeshine stand. Half expecting him, and the other half wanting him, to say that she was amazing just like before. But he doesn't.
"Awesome," is all he says.
In hindsight, her bitter, "ugh, whatever," wasn't necessary.
Neither was her almost childish stomping off, leaving Andy sitting at the shoeshine waving her off and thinking it was just another day for April to be angry at someone else and not him. Because of course Andy wouldn't think that; and instead be in his own little world where everything was awesome and great, and no one hated anybody.
Andy always comes into work, but sometimes - very, very rarely though - Ron doesn't. Or, more accurately, he comes in and then proceeds to "take meetings" that Leslie sanctioned that amount to little more than hunting trips, steak breaks, or on this occasion a day at a cabin he never really specifies his ownership of. April knows better, though.
But, when the time comes for Andy to just smile stupidly at her all day and April to take out whatever she's dealing with on him, she doesn't have Ron to say that she'll be fine. Andy asked her if maybe they would do more than just hang out at the stand together, and instead of taking advantage of that April instead told him she was busy. She had no idea what she was busy with, but it was the first thing she thought of.
"Oh, okay," he nods, understanding. "Maybe next weekend, or something?"
"I'm busy with a guy," she blurts out.
Andy stops smiling for a second and looks away. "Okay," he adds, backing off and almost defeated.
What guy? April didn't want anything to do with whatever the hell she was masquerading as with Derek and Ben, and everyone else was terrible in comparison to him. They didn't make her smile like he did, or pretend to be in a good mood like he did, or make up awful lies like this to make him jealous like he did.
She doesn't take it back though, instead leaving him with it and hating herself just a little bit for saying something like that. All that time, the last few weeks, wasted on an off the cuff lie. April leaves early that day, not bothering to put in her next three hours or even mention it to anyone. She takes a long drive farther out from Pawnee than she's gone, at least in something that isn't a plane, and realizes how much open field there is this far out.
After about an hour of driving, and realizing that if she doesn't stop now she won't make it back to the gas station she passed up, April stops and surveys what's around her. There isn't much in a field save for corn, but on the opposite side of the road at the shoulder she turned off into is a huge tree. Not much else is in the field, just that tree. It looks staggeringly tall even from that distance, just a few minutes' walk, and when she gets closer the large, burly limbs stand out farther and the height impresses her more. Something about it seems like it's been there before, and it's seen the same things over and over only to weather it all; to stand strong in the face of it all.
April sits down at the base of it, near where a series of roots jut out like naked veins. Sitting on one of them, the tree towers over her more even with an empty bough above her head and dead leaves around her. Even in the face of that it seems strong and reliable. It wouldn't be going away anytime soon, and April likes the idea of that. Maybe it's because touching the bark and feeling it craggy and cold, just when she thinks it's all her fault, she can hear four words repeating in her head. Not in that same, gruff and low voice, but in her own. Soon, April realizes she's saying them aloud.
"You will be fine," she mutters, moving her hand from the bark of the tree and standing up slowly. Walking back to her car, she takes one look back at the tree and repeats it again, like a mantra in her head: "You will be fine."