A/N: This was a request a while ago after National Best Friend Day (a thing that apparently exists.) Anon requested: "Leslie makes the day a big deal for Ann and ignores April who, lonely while Andy is gone in London, takes it to heart."

There's two things April knows about National Best Friend Day which, before she looked it up over a boring lunch with no one there, April thought was made up by Leslie:

One: it's stupid, but she can't tell if that's because Leslie's choice of best friend is Ann Perkins, otherwise known as the single most boring person on the planet, or if that's just because of what kind of party she threw. Leslie shooed everyone out of the department, and from their jobs which April and Ron were all too happy to avoid, to hang out with her best friend. Something about agitated April but she didn't really think about it.

Part two of Reasons Why Best Friend Day is Dumb was that stupid feeling when she was at lunch, or at her desk, and no one was there. Usually Andy was there and they'd make fun of something together, or he'd call her sweet and she'd get grossed out that he thought she was, and then they'd go make out somewhere because work was stupid. He's gone, and April can handle that since he'll be back. Really, she'd had a few dreams and thoughts about what it'd be like if he didn't and April was certainly not about to talk about those nights with anyone. Instead, it's just so boring that April expected something else to happen to take the time away from her.

Maybe she thought Leslie would say a word to her and that she'd see something April was doing and call it amazing and give her just a little bit of an ego boost, or really anything, and instead April was eating a greasy lunch of hamburgers with Ron. There were times that this was fun, just being quiet and unnoticing of the other person with him, but April truly felt alone.

Which, in her mind, was at first paradoxical. She knew she was an introvert and didn't like too many people, so shouldn't she, by extension, want to be alone? April spent a lot of time working through that when she was crushing on Andy, wondering how she could feel so much for one person when she didn't like people in general, but then she learned more about herself and how it was different. The difference, the clause to the paradox, was that her being alone was of April's own decision. Loneliness separated itself from introversion in choice, and April had no choice in the matter here. It wasn't totally weird that she wanted some sort of human contact that would do something more than just eat a hamburger and refuse to speak with her, especially since her usual, daily form of that outlet wasn't even in the same country and as much as she loved seeing him in a crappy webcam it wasn't the same.

So, yeah, April was lonely.

When she walked back to the department, April had all intention of barging in and pushing aside Ann to get her side of the love but she looked in and saw the two of them laughing, Leslie and Ann, and April knew it'd be dumb. Sure, screwing with Ann could be fun, but what would she really get out of it?

April was so lonely that the idea of being brushed aside by Leslie really, honestly hurt. She knew that Ann was her best friend, but didn't she mean something to Leslie? Whatever happened to thinking of April as a woman and a person?

So, instead of interrupting them, a strange compulsion drove April to leaving work early to go home and crawl into bed with Champion as company. At least he loved her, though that was probably just because he needed fed and didn't know any better. When Andy called her later, wondering why she wasn't there for the Skype chat, April broke just a little bit.

By just a little bit, she meant that Andy stayed up until five in the morning talking to her - comforting her, really - because God for some reason seeing that stupid banner and posterboard with Ann's face and Leslie's billions of praises for her hurt. It hurt so much that it just brought into startling clarity how April was truly, honestly alone right now. It took Andy hour after hour to explain that she wasn't and, along the way get confused himself and tired and she listened to him eat his dinner about four hours late because he was too busy talking to her, and April hated it.

She hated it. And, yet, here she was, a lonely little ball of hate curled up with her three-legged dog, definitely not crying over the phone with Andy panicking and talking about buying a ticket back to Pawnee, and wondering why Leslie couldn't just say something nice to her and now she was making Andy stay up way too late and causing him to forget to eat just so he can comfort her. It's gross, and annoying, but in the back of April's mind she knew that she needed it. That's why she just took and took, and really Andy gave it all over without a single thought. For a moment, when they were both quiet and April realized the call was several hours long, April didn't feel so alone or tired. Then she remembered that he wasn't there to be a big, warm cuddling teddy bear with her and make out, and have sex half a dozen times because she was so happy to see him, and it all came crashing back down on her.

She was inconsolable after that.