A/N: This was requested just yesterday, and I feel like I should touch on it. Instead of going to a giant climax of pure sadness, let's stick with a soft denouement for the week. Not particularly horrible but there's stuff in here that's not just peachy and fun.

Warning for talk of suicide ideation.

He first noticed it when they went to the Grand Canyon and April kept staring down and into the valley below, but then he just assumed that she was in as much awe of the thing as he was. It only made sense, since it was this big hole in the ground and awesome that she would think of him like that, and want to help him do almost all of that list, that she would just be lost in it all with him.

"Hey, babe," he called out to her then, trying to get her attention because they actually had to leave soon.

It took April a few seconds to turn around and when she did she blinked, as if unsure that she was being spoken to, and shook her head lightly. "What?" she finally said quietly.

"C'mon, we gotta go," he had told her, smiling, and April took one last look at the canyon before sighing and walking up to him.

Andy just assumed she saw something cool in the distance, or that she was thinking about something. Sadly, he was right on the second account. He probably should have figured something was up when she refused to speak for a little while on the drive back. It wasn't super fun listening to music that she liked then, and he didn't even know why she insisted on listening to it but he wasn't going to push her. She just pleaded, more than anything, and before he could say anything else had changed the song. April grabbed his free hand and held it, and Andy wasn't about to toss it off but he definitely was confused at the urgency of it.

A few weeks later, Andy tried asking her about it. For some reason it stuck in his head and he couldn't, for the life of him, get it out of there and he just needed to know what the hell was so cool that made her stare back, and what made her hold his hand like that and listen to her weird indie music, and why she kept much later hours in the last month. It wasn't that serious, but April stayed up even later and got very little or no sleep lately. She wasn't Leslie either, so she didn't use that time to get a ton of work projects done. April just sat up in bed with her laptop screen illuminating her face, watching random things on YouTube and scrolling endless blogs and websites, and every time he woke up after attempting to stay up with her and failing it was the same.

He tried, really. Sometimes, though, he liked to sleep a lot. Four o'clock in the morning was fine a night or two out of the week, probably three and sometimes four depending on how drunk he could get, but then it just began to take its toll on him and Andy had no idea how in the hell April was doing it. She didn't even sleep at work or anything, and it started to worry him. So, naturally, the first thing he did when woke up was open up his stupid mouth and ask her about it.

Groggy, with a scratchy voice, all that came out was, "Y'okay babe?"

April turned her head to look at him and it was the same person there, but he sensed something different. Not exactly hurt, or tired, but just weary. That woke him up the rest of the way, whether it was imagined or he actually saw it or it was all a figment of a sleep-deprived mind, and he sat up to scoot closer to her.

"You're all right?" he asked again, tossing an arm over her and, for once, April felt small. She was physically a whole head shorter than him, and thin, but she always felt huge to him. A big heart, big mind, and bigger ideas - and the most important person, thing, in his entire life - so it never seemed that way to him. It scared him."Babe?"

"I'm fine," she mumbled, but April stopped moving her hand on the trackpad. With only the blue-white light in the dark room, he kissed the side of her head and tried not to look past the the glasses she refused to wear out of the house (another super cute thing that she completely disagrees with) for those eyes again. "I said... I said I'm fine, Andy. I really am."

Andy nodded, hugging her closer with his arm. "Okay, um... but just, like, I wanna hear whatever you gotta say," he explained with another kiss to her head. "Um, if you're thinking something."

"Ew-"

"Babe, c'mon," he chuckled and nudged her with his side. "You can't fool me!"

April cracked a little smile and nodded. "Yeah, you're right," she let out a deep sigh and snuggled closer to him.

"You're good though?"

"Yeah," she reassured him.

She was fine, and occasionally she would break down and hold something back from him.

Andy tried, he really did, but she wouldn't open up to him. So, of course, he didn't make her and just reminded her that she could talk to him whenever. That was the whole point of marriage, after all - they were here to make the other person know how awesome they were and to do things that would make them even cooler. The breakdowns were never so bad that April couldn't function, but Andy learned intimately how to handle a panic attack over the course of another few years. It's weird, because he never thought that April could be brought down to something like that and then remembered that she was just a person too. An amazing person, but she was definitely still human, so Andy reminded her to talk to him whenever.

Again, he saw her shrink. Maybe not to the tiny, scared thing he saw at night after the Grand Canyon, but she was doing it still. Everything about April in the office and outwardly was an exaggeration, but this was just her and he wanted to know it so well that he could help her with it but April didn't want to let him in.

She didn't, in her words one particular night where she wouldn't open the bathroom door, want to become, "A burden."

Hours after that stupid prom, the couch carried his weight after Andy shooed Orin out of the house, his dog-watching no longer necessary, and April stayed in his lap.

"You wanna talk about... that stuff?" he offered.

"What stuff?"

"You said at the prom, y'know... you thought that we wouldn't go out or something?" he clarified, rubbing her arm and bringing April's whole body closer to him in a one-armed embrace.

"It's like you said," April shrugged. "Kids are stupid."

"Yeah, but... babe, is this like that stuff? The, um, panic attacks?" Andy bit the inside of his cheek and looked away from her like he was saying something wrong. "Sorry-"

"No, I... shoulda talked about this. I wanna talk about it," she whispered.

"Yeah?"

"It's important," April lifted her finger up between them like she was telling him the rules of the conversation. "Don't call it stupid, please."

"Never," he shook his head.

"Understand that I don't think like this anymore," April shook her head as well and spoke slowly. "I love you and this doesn't have anything to do with you."

"Now I'm kinda scared," Andy said with wide eyes, unsure where this was going.

"Andy, I am... was, y'know," she sighed and took a deep breath. Suddenly the air around them felt so thin and her voice was weak, like she was shrinking. Andy took one of her hands and kissed it, not wanting to interrupt her but needing to show her he was there. He kissed the back of her hand and her knuckles, and held onto the one with both of his. "It's stupid."

"Hey, you said not to call it stupid," Andy murmured and kept her hand close to his.

April sighed and looked down, taking another breath. "Look, I don't like thinking about high school for more than just that stuff I said earlier, okay?"

"Sure," Andy nodded.

For a moment he wondered if she would explain, and didn't bother to push her any further. This was already more than he thought she would say, and really the conversation at Prom told him just enough to let Andy know to constantly remind her just how much he loved her. Really, it was kind-of ridiculous. They're together now, and it's the single greatest thing ever in the history of all the awesome things in the world that exist, and he wouldn't want to change that for anything, ever. They aren't in high school, so why bother thinking about that? So April willing to divulge anything else to him at all is amazing.

"I was serious, no one liked me in high school," she explained. Andy didn't know whether to say anything or let her continue, but April didn't give him the opportunity to say anything else when she continued. "I mean, that's fine. They all sucked anyways. It just sorta, y'know, sucked a lot. People would make fun of me, and that's cool because I made fun of them but sometimes they'd do it when I was trying to just live my life."

"Aw-"

"It's nothing serious, they just called me stupid names I don't even remember," April scoffed and rolled her eyes. "My parents didn't really get me either, y'know? My sister was stupid, and I basically had zero friends."

Andy sat further back in the couch and pulled April onto his lap so that she was straddling him there, looking down at him. He kept hold of her hand until his got absurdly sweaty and let go, but April quickly snaked hers back to his and didn't seem to mind all of the sweat. He kept them there, staring, and she continued.

"I thought it was fine, and that they were all dumb. I thought it was fine, y'know? I was fine," April chuckled, looked down, and then glanced up at him through her eyelashes. "I was fine. I told myself that, like, everyday. I told myself that they were the messed up ones. I was the cool one."

"April, you don't have to-"

"They were the problem, I wasn't. I kept telling myself that, and that they were the reason I hated everything so much," April's voice cracked and she looked down, sniffed, and when she looked back up her eyes were watering. She furrowed her brow, speaking slowly and concentrating on not crying. "I hated all of it, and I thought it was them. Why did they hate me so much? They never wanted to talk to me, or say hi, or anything. They just picked on me and called me the crazy girl, and the crazy bitch, and creepy. I thought it was cool."

"Babe, seriously, it's okay," Andy tried to interrupt her, smiling, but April was clearly letting everything out. She wasn't stopping, and she made a strangled noise, her face contorting in a strange, sickening grimace. Her nose scrunched, lips curled, and her head shook in confusion.

"Why did they hate me so much? I thought it was them," April gave a dark, weak laugh and then nodded. "Then I realized it was me. I was the problem, y'know? I was the common thing in all of these situations, and I... hated myself, all of a sudden."

"April-"

"It was me, all along. I didn't talk to anyone. I didn't make fun of them anymore. I didn't do anything, ever," April wasn't looking at him anymore, as if caught in a reminiscence that she didn't know how to get out of. She stared down at their hands together and kept speaking. "I thought I knew the answer, and it was so dumb but I thought about it. I really wanted to do it, Andy."

"Do what?" he asked, confused.

April chuckled, humorless and with a sniffle as a tear fell down her cheek. "Kill myself," she said calmly.

Everything was silent for a second, and April wouldn't stop laughing that weak little titter. She sat there in his lap, Andy's hands around hers, and laughed while he tried to process that thought. He tried to figure out how on Earth someone like this would think that's the answer, and he wondered what really brought her there. April was stronger than that, she wouldn't let some dumb teenage bullies bring her down like that, would she? Then again, he didn't think that mattered. Sometimes things broke through, even if they never really did for him he guessed that sometimes April's hard-as-hell exterior had seams that could be chipped away at or cut into.

"Andy?" she asked, as if she'd done it already, and he came back to the scene at hand. "Andy-"

"I love you babe, and I'm so glad you told me that," Andy started, pulling her closer so that she was practically sitting on his stomach and her face was closer to his. "If you ever... ever, ever, ever feel like that again I'm always here and you're the best, and you're so brave, and I love you. So much, like you don't even-"

"Andy," she laughed and sniffed again. "I told you, I don't think like that anymore."

"I know, but... I just wanna make sure you know I'm here," Andy shrugged and gave her a little smirk that she thankfully returned, albeit with a much smaller wisp of a smile.

"Thanks."

"Seriously, whatever makes you feel better," Andy explained further, because really he did need to make sure she knew that. "If you wanna talk for, like, hours or days or you wanna go get one of those man-cure things you like I won't even buy one of those super huge burgers you tell me not to eat, and you can go do that and it'll be cool, right?"

April didn't speak, instead staring at him, smiling, and she nodded. "You're the best husband ever," she whispered.

"I'm super serious," he told her again, afraid she still didn't know.

"Me too," she told him. "The best."

"And you are the best wife-" he tried to finish his sentence but was met with a kiss.

She told him that she doesn't think about it, but Andy will never, ever stop telling her that she can always talk to him.

7.27.2015 - I'm sorry, but I've recently hit a mental snag. The abuse is too much. I literally cannot take it anymore, and I don't want to look at my writing and feel horrible and gross anymore.

I'm putting this on hold for now. I'm sorry.