A/N: For those of you who know where this headcanon is going, from tumblr, then I'm sorry. For those who don't, I'm even more sorry because it's going to hurt a lot.

Everyone files into the room, all behind her. Robbie stands tall against the wall, her arms crossed and a heavy crease to her brow that's unusual on her and masks the typical brightness there, and she refuses to say anything. Her mouth is a thin line, pouted and worried. Jack, likewise, doesn't say anything but he sits down in one of the weak, plastic chairs. His forehead taps against his clasped hands, angled close to him, every few moments and it's really the only sound there. The twins have yet to make it, and Sam texts April to let her know she's in an elevator. They're all sitting in the chilly unease of the hospital room, surrounding Andy.

A few days before, he had a heart attack. It wasn't serious, they thought, and didn't believe surgery would be necessary. It was going to be routine, they said. April remembers those words clearly, and remembers the call saying that he had another heart attack at night, while she was gone.

She can deal with one heart attack. He doesn't eat that well, despite every attempt she tries to get him to at least consider a salad once and a while, and his exercise regime basically consists of a walk to his car every once and a while or the very rare Johnny Karate show appearance. Beer and inaction caused it, probably, and April could deal with that. He could change his diet, and work out a little, and things could be fine and they would both die super gray and super in each other's arms while they slept or something. That's how it was supposed to happen.

Now it's him, gray bearded and with a slightly wrinkled version of his old grin, lying in a hospital cot with a weakness in his grip that she hates. Now it's her, graying but still as energetic as before and he's slipping.

It all happens in an instant, and April can never forget it.

First he sighs, but it's fine he says. He says that things are gonna be okay, and when Sam comes in she shoots across the room and hugs the both of them tight. Slowly, the other two make their way into the family hug and it's missing a few but April needs it. He needs it too, probably.

"You guys are the best," Andy mutters, and April snuggles up to him the best she can. "Best family I could've gotten."

Then he smiles. And then, when April turns to look at one of the kids, she hears a faint catch of his breath. From there, it keeps escalating. April asks him if he's okay, or if he needs something, but Andy's fine. That's what he says. His grin falters for a second and he winces, but he says it's okay again. Rapid elevation of breath and before long, he's going into some kind of attack that April's never seen before. He's never reacted to anything like this, and it certainly isn't a heart attack. He shakes twice, like he's trying to fight off pain, and then laughs weak and with hurt there.

Jack runs out of the room, proving years of football in school and now professionally, urgent to find someone. April grabs his hand and he convulses again, and she doesn't know what to do. There isn't anything to do but sit there and watch and talk to him.

"Hey babe, I'm here," she says, quietly. He doesn't seem to respond, his eyes rolling back and closing and she squeezes harder where his hand seems to fail him. Some sort of alarm has to be going off somewhere that they can't hear. "Babe, calm down... it's gonna be okay! You're gonna be fine-"

He growls something, so insufferably tiny and frail that they can't understand any of it, and April kisses the back of his shaking hand. She wants to get up, find someone and bring them here. Have them make him better, anything. But it doesn't happen. The seizure, as she learns it was, keeps happening and April tries to steady him with Robbie's help. At some point she started crying, but she only knew that from Robbie telling her that her hands kept slipping on Andy's arm. All she remembers is trying to talk to him.

"I'm here," she says. No response. "Andy, it's gonna be okay! You're gonna be fine... you just gotta calm down, babe," she tries but it's fruitless. He won't talk, and his eyes have shut completely. He slows down the rapid shaking and his head relaxes, but his breathing is what kills her.

It's strong at first, his heart rate doing crazy things to some machine that April can barely make out as a blip on her radar, and she's hopeful that it's all calmed down. It'll be better, she tells herself. Then it weakens, and the little reassuring spikes on the monochrome screen shrink more and more over the course of a minute. Before long, she can barely tell he's breathing. His eyes aren't open, and his hand isn't grabbing hers anymore.

For an instant, and she only remembers this on the worst days where her kids aren't talking to her and no one from the old Parks gang is there to comfort her, April flashes back to the first time she held Andy's hand. It was so big and warm, and his fingers were so interested in the lines of her palm and where her knuckles jutted out that he spent about five minutes inspecting her whole hand before she called him a weirdo and made him blush. Then they kissed, and he wouldn't stop holding her hand and never did. Except for now.

"Hey babe, we never got divorced," she finds herself saying. Another line that apparently she said and only learned after her kids told her, years later. "We never went to Pawnee and had someone break us up. We coulda gotten a real wedding, too. Or, like, some random thing with, like, five people like we wanted to. It woulda been so cool. You gotta stick around for that, right?" She asks him, and he doesn't respond. April tries not to think about how he never responded, and honestly tries never to think about this evening at all. "You gotta stick around, babe. It's gonna be so... boring without you."

A long, outstanding beep fires into her ears but April doesn't pay attention to it. Only the warm lump of unmoving flesh and bone in her hand, a grin on his face.

"Andy, I love you babe. I know we never... y'know, I never told you it enough," she chuckles and her faces is streaming with tears. "It's stupid, I told you like all the time. That still wasn't enough. You needed to know it more."

No response.

"Babe?"

No response. At the very least, April knows that the last thing he ever got to know was his family surrounding him, hugging him, and that he told them all they were the best he could have been given. It's a tiny salve for the wound that is Robbie trying to explain to Eddie and Victoria, once they arrive an hour later, what happened but just breaking into the same fits April was having; it's barely a cure for going to Jack's big game (a Super Bowl game! he had screamed to Andy on the phone, and both were so excited April couldn't help but smile with him) alone and wanting to cheer but just not having it in her. It wasn't enough for them to visit his grave after, all six of them, and regale the story of Jack's insane seventy-yard reception that brought them to victory. They drank, all of them, and April ended up with kids piled around her hugging her and promising that it'll be okay as she broke down in front of a stone bearing his name and not hers as well. It had Devoted husband and father engraved right there, but he was so much more.

He was living, breathing proof that everything would be okay in the world. He showed her that life was all right, and that you could make it what you wanted to be and that things would be okay as long as they were together.

A scarce reminder of this is that he knew his life had been incredible, just moments before he died with April's hand still clutching his and her mouth refusing anything other than a stark dryness and hars flood of tears and pain soon after. It's not enough, but at least she knew she loved him. At least he had that, and at least she got to be close to him one last time.

an2: This is my real deal death headcanon for Andy. So, yeah.