Ann wakes her up at the crack of dawn the next morning (Abigail's early a.m. feedings aren't just screwing up the sleep-schedule in the Perkins-Russell household. Oh no.)
"Leslie Knope you get your as- keister over here now!"
Sometimes Leslie longs for the days when Ann didn't need to find child-appropriate swear words. Other times she finds it hilarious. She'll get back to you on which this is.
"Wha-? What is going on?"
"What's going on? What's going on? Oh nothing except I just saw Tom's Facebook update."
Wait. That seems important for some reason.
Oh! She sits up. "I'm not doing anything embarrassing, am I? Please tell me I'm not wearing a mermaid outfit."
"Why would you even- Never mind." Then Ann, bless her heart, keys in on the source of Leslie's hysteria, and her voice turns placating. "Don't worry, they're all perfectly respectable pictures. You're not in that many and you look great. You could probably even use one or two for campaign shots if you could photoshop the daiquiri out."
"Oh, good," she lets out a relieved sigh, then the disconnect sets in. "Wait, then why are you calling if there's nothing wrong with the pictures?"
"Oh I didn't say that."
"You just said they were respectable."
"That's not the problem."
"Then what?"
"Ben Wyatt! What is Ben Wyatt doing in Tom's Facebook update holding your arm?"
Oh.
That.
"That's um. That's kind of a long story."
"I'm sure it is. Your rear-end at my kitchen table in twenty-minutes. And bring waffles with you as a stupid-head tax."
Yeah, remember what she said about sometimes finding Ann's new vocabulary choices hilarious? This isn't one of those times.
00
Leslie shows up with waffles as ordered and really strong coffee as a bribe (because Ann's mom voice is somehow ten-times more commanding than the nurse-voice and Leslie never had any resistance to the nurse voice to begin with). And Ann makes her sit down at the kitchen-table and give her the play-by-play of the last three-and-a-half months while she feeds Abigail.
It takes a little while, partly because Abigail is displaying a stubborn streak, so there's a lot of stopping to imitate airplanes and make funny faces and generally convince her that pureed carrots are the best thing ever (Abigail's not buying it. See, very wise. Supreme Court here we come.) But also partly because Leslie apparently needed to just say it all out loud more than she realized, and once she starts she can't seem to stop.
By the time she's done telling the story, Ann has finished the extra-strong coffee she brought with her and has gotten up to make a fresh pot.
"So, um, that's it. We're just friends. It's not a big deal. Really."
Ann gapes, then picks up one Abigail's squishy building blocks and hurls it across the kitchen at her. "I can't believe you didn't tell me."
Leslie throws up her hands, warding off the assault. "It wasn't deliberate."
"You told Tom!"
"I didn't." Another block. "Okay, yes, I did. But just that Ben was coming to town, and I asked him to invite all the people Ben used to work with. But he doesn't know about-" she waves her hands vaguely, "everything else. Nobody does. It's not like we advertised it back then."
"Tell me about it." Ann grumbles, comes around to sit back down at the kitchen table. "I can't believe you're doing this again."
"I'm not." This time the protest comes in the form of a cheerio from Abigail who has apparently decided throwing things at Aunt Leslie is a brilliant brand-new game her mom made up.
Ann crosses her arms and gives her a look that clearly says 'see even your god-daughter is calling your bullshit' (and apparently her face is still allowed to use the adult expletive).
Leslie glares over at the nine-month-old. "Traitor." Abigail throws another cheerio from her highchair and laughs. Help is obviously not going to be found in that quarter. She turns back to Ann. "Seriously though, there is nothing more going on than what I told you. We met up at the fundraiser. We talked. We decided to try and see if we could be friends and it turns out we can. End of story."
"Then why didn't you tell me about this when it all started? Leslie you call to tell me you're thinking about changing shampoo brands."
"That's an important, personal decision. It requires a lot of thought and input."
Ann looks over at her daughter. "Abby do you need mommy to get you more Cheerios?"
"Okay!" Leslie holds up her hands in surrender. "Stop using your baby as your enforcer. I don't know why I didn't say anything. I guess, for awhile I didn't really think there was anything to tell. I saw him, we played golf, we had a few phone-calls, but it didn't seem like it was actually gonna be a thing. Also-"
She breaks off not really sure how to say the next part.
"Also, what?" Leslie squinches up her face and turns away, trying to avoid the subject, but Ann persists. "Leslies come on, also what? Tell me."
"No."
"Tell me."
"No."
"Leslie Knope, you tell me right now."
Rocking a little her chair in a pout, she groans. "All right, all right. I didn't tell you because I knew you were going to think it was a bad idea."
"Oh sweetie." Ann reaches across the kitchen table and puts a hand over hers.
"So you don't think it's a bad idea?" Leslie asks hopefully.
"No." Ann shakes her head, "It's absolutely a terribleidea. Leslie, this guy broke your heart into a million tiny little pieces. I don't understand why you even want to be friends with him, let alone how you could be."
"That wasn't his fault. It wasn't anyone's fault."
"He left you!"
Leslie closes her eyes and drops her head. And here they are at the other reason that she never mentioned Ben's reappearance in her life to Ann. Because they've never actually had a real conversation about what happened with Ben. Ann put a lot of things together and made a few assumptions, and she was ninety-five percent right, and Leslie just appreciated her silent support so much, she never quite got around to correcting the five percent Ann got wrong.
Ann's putting it together now. "What? What am I missing?"
"He didn't leave me."
"You have another name for moving over five hours away?"
"No I mean-" God, she's never actually said any of this out loud, to anyone, and it feels a little bit like she's suddenly reliving the moment all over again. She swallows, presses on. "He offered to stay."
"Wha-?" Ann whispers, not quite managing to get the whole word out.
It's like a damn breaking and suddenly everything is coming out in a rush. "He had an email written turning down the job and everything. And all I had to do was say yes and he would have stayed. But it meant he would have had to quit his job with the City and take something he didn't really want, and I had just gotten offered the opportunity to run for city council and that job in South Bend was his dream, and I-" her voice catches, "I couldn't Ann. I just couldn't."
"Ohh." All of Ann's anger melts away, and she comes around to sit beside her, pulling her into a hug. "Oh sweetie. I'm so sorry. All those times I called Ben names. I just wish you had told me. Why would you ever think you couldn't tell me this?"
Leslie shakes her head, and Ann just pulls her closer.
This is of course the moment Abigail decides to start bawling her head off. Pulling away, Ann gives her an apologetic look, then gets up to go tend to her daughter. Leslie tries to use the time to regroup, gather her thoughts together in some semblance of order.
Finally when Ann sit back down with a now changed and placated Abigail in her arms, Leslie at least has a kind of an answer. Not that it's necessarily a good one, but . . . it's the best she's got.
"I think I didn't tell you because I needed someone around who was one hundred percent on my side. Who didn't think I was the bad guy."
"And you thought I wouldn't be on your side if I knew what had happened?"
"I don't know. There were days Iwasn't on my side. There were times right after he left that I woke up, and I missed him so much and all I could think was: 'What have I done?' Sometimes it was nice to just go out with you and pretend like it really was like any other breakup and 'all men are dogs' actually applied."
"Yeah, but I could have done that anyways. I can do it now. Watch-" she shifts Abigail to rest up against her shoulder and puts on her best 'bitching' face, "I can't believe he put all that pressure on you. That was soooo unfair. Why can't guys just make a decision? Like you didn't have enough to worry about with everything else going on. Didn't he know that?" She drops the act and smiles, "See totally could have pulled it off."
Leslie huffs a small laugh under her breath. "Thanks for that."
"All part of the service." Then her face shifts into something more serious. "But I've got to ask. Leslie do you really think you made a mistake? Because if you do, if this is about some kind of regret or trying to go back, then what you're doing now-" she shakes her head, "it's a reallybad idea. Cause I got to say from everything you told me, it sounds like he's pretty established up there in Indy."
"And I'm only going to get even more established down here. You don't get to move out of the district if it votes you into office. Believe me I know."
Ann blinks in surprise. "You've thought about this."
"I did. Once. A little while ago. I sat down one night and forced myself to really sort through all my expectations, make sure they were realistic. Last time, I just wanted to believe so badly that everything would magically work out that I let myself get carried away. I didn't want to run the risk of doing that again."
"And?"
"And I don't know whether I made a mistake or not. But I do know that I love my life right now. That at this moment I'm really happy, and Ben's a part of that but he's not all of it. He's not even the biggest or second biggest part. He's like number five or something."
"Five?"
"Four tops. Look, we're friends. That's what we've agreed upon. He's made it very clear that he doesn't want anything else from me, and you know, after thinking about it, I'm not sure I want anything else from him. Our lives just don't-" she gropes for the word, "fitany other way. I think if we tried to force them to, something would just get broken. And I like what we have right now enough not to want to risk that."
"Wow, that- That is really mature." Ann takes a sip of her coffee and adds, "Of course, it's also complete-" Glancing down at her daughter, she covers Abigail's ears and says the last word, in an exaggerated all-caps stage-whisper, "C-R-A-P. It's complete crap."
"Wha-? Why?"
"You still have feelings for him!"
"I do not." Yeah, okay, she's totally lying and even Abigail knows it. So. Not. The. Point.
Ann completely ignores her protest. "Big Feelings. Big 'insert needed rationalization here' feelings. You say things like 'we've agreed to be friends' and 'our lives don't fit' and all I hear is 'blah, blah, I want to kiss him, blah, blah, blah I'd jump his bones if he moved here tomorrow, bladdity blah.' Come on, I'm a little bit right here."
The memory of last night in the club and how badly she'd wanted him to kiss her, flashes through her mind too fresh to be effectively shoved away, and Leslie drops her face to her hands trying to hide the flush she can feel on her cheeks. Half groans, half-laughs, "Maybe a little."
"Ha-ha! Knew it. I knew it." Ann gloats. Bouncing Abigail in her arms, she talks to her daughter, "Your Aunt Leslie may be a big important politician, but your mommy still knows a thing or two."
"Yes. Fine. You're very smart. So what do I do?"
"Well you stop not telling me things, for one. Other than that?" She shrugs. "Don't know."
"What? How do you not know? Aren't you supposed to tell me this is a really bad idea. Or I shouldn't try to be friends with him if I still have even the tiniest bit of feelings for him or that I don't know- I should move to an ashram or something?"
"Well, since you moving to an ashram would interfere with my ability to get free babysitting that's definitely off the table. As for the rest of it," she shakes her head, "I don't know, it sounds like you've pretty much already got it covered, and it hasn't done any good. But it also sounds like you're trying to at least be honest with yourself about everything, and you and Mark eventually figured out how to be really great friends. Who am I to say you can't do it again?"
"Yeah." Leslie nods in agreement, "Yeah absolutely." Doesn't bother adding the fact that she's pretty sure she was never even half as in love with the fantasy of Mark as she still is with the reality of Ben. That doesn't really seem like a constructive point at this moment.
Ann smiles, "Just- just talk to me okay? I promise I'll jump in if I get worried. I can be like an early warning system or something."
She gets up so she can start to walk Abigail a little bit because she's getting fussy. Then something seems to occur to her and she looks back over.
"You're going to have to get me his contact info."
Leslie is immediately on guard. "Whhhhy?"
"Two reasons. One, so I can stalk him if you get hurt as a result of this, because all men are dogs, so it willbe his fault. But, first since he's apparently a friend now, I suppose I have to invite him to your birthday."
Beautiful, beautifulAnn.
00
Ann and Greg host a party for Leslie's forty-third birthday on a Saturday in the middle of August at what used to be the lot behind Ann's house, but is now the Wamapoke Memorial Park. (Putting in the joint grant to the State Historical Society with Ken Hotate was one of her last acts before resigning from the Parks department to take the council seat. She knew there was a reason she couldn't get that atrocities map out of her head). There's a lovely memorial in the center and interpretative exhibits at both entrances, and the rest of the park has been taken up with a community garden in one corner and a modest playground in the other and covered shelter with a corresponding green space that the Wamapoke use four times a year to hold commemorative events and outreach programs (and possibly an off-books bingo game but that's never been confirmed).
It's a great evening. Casual and informal. Greg, Ron and Ben take turns minding the grill and people come and go, gorging themselves on bratwursts and hamburgers and waffles courtesy of JJ as a birthday gift. Tamberlee brings cupcakes with actual candied bacon on top and they're decidedly not awful (sometimes Leslie almost believes there actually isn't another effigy in Ron's future). And Ann manages not to take offense when nobody seems to be all that interested in her lowfat applesauce cake.
Her mother even stops by for an hour in the middle, and though she spends an inordinate time cooing over Abigail (who is apparently Marlene's elected surrogate for a grand-daughter, despite all her reassurance about not wanting any), she still pulls Leslie over to the side before she goes and hugs her longer and harder than in recent memory.
"I'm so proud of you. And I know you're going to win this election," she whispers, and it feels better than any present ever could. She pulls away and claps her on the shoulders. "Just don't screw it up."
Well, at least Leslie knows her mother isn't saying this because of early onset dementia.
"Hey," Ben wanders over and hands her a soda. Follows her gaze out to where her mother is getting in the car. "Good talk?"
"She told me she was proud of me."
"Good. She should be."
"She also told me not to screw it up."
Ben splutters a laugh. "Okay then."
"Yeah, I think retirement's really softening her."
00
The party peters-out in a lazy haphazard fashion. People peeling off in couples and then in groups, until finally even Greg and Ann have to concede defeat and go put Abigail to bed, and it's just her and Ben sitting at one of the picnic tables looking up at the stars.
"This was nice. This was a nice birthday."
"It was." Ben agrees.
"Thank you for coming all the way down here by the way."
"Wouldn't have missed it."
"I wish you didn't have to drive back tonight."
"Yeah so do I, but Harrison's already going to be pretty mad at me for leaving him this long. There's every possibility I'm going to lose shoes over this."
"You should have brought him with you. I would have liked to meet him."
"I thought about it, but-" he shakes his head, "it wouldn't have been a good idea. Too many new people. He would have gone crazy trying to meet them all. Next time you're up in Indy though, I'll definitely have to introduce you."
"I'd like that."
"Good." He looks over at her and they both smile. "He'll like you."
"You think so?"
"Yeah. But don't let it go to your head. He likes everyone."
She laughs. "Thanks. I feel very special now."
Ben doesn't say anything for a moment. Then he sets down the soda he switched over to an hour and a half ago, and turns a little in his seat to face her more directly, shifting his legs to straddle the bench as he does so. The result is that even as his body moves further away, (no longer the shoulder-to-shoulder thigh-to-thigh press they've gotten comfortable with over the past few months), it somehow suddenly feels ten times more intimate. If she moved, if he shifted, if she leaned back or he reached out, if any one of a dozen things happened he'd be embracing her in a decidedly non-platonic way.
Pushing the thought aside with a practiced mental shrug (really it's almost reflexive these days) she turns her head to meet his gaze. "What? You're serious all of the sudden."
"I, um, I have something for you."
"You got me another birthday gift? Okay you do know there's no bonus round here right? Besides, the subscription for audiobooks to keep me company on drives around my district? Pretty much a winner already."
"No, I didn't. I mean I did, but it's not um- It wasn't for thisbirthday," he finishes quietly, his voice going low and rough on the word 'this', investing it with so much meaning it seems to loom between them.
It only takes her a split second to catch-up, to do the math. Her thirty-eighth birthday had been two weeks before the Governor's Reception in Indy, before everything between them broke free and fell apart all in one night. And it had been nice. Everyone had taken her out to JJ's for lunch and Ben had somehow convinced them to make her waffle cake iced with whipped cream and had tucked a gift-certificate that would cover her lunches there for next two months in her pad-folio, and it had all been a little more familiar than they'd ever allowed themselves before, and she never thought there might be anything else.
"Oh." She doesn't really know what else to say.
"Yeah. At the time I bought it thinking something was bound to happen soon and I'd be able to give it to you. It was like there was a change in the wind, you know? It never occurred to me -" he breaks off and looks down at his hands braced on the bench in front of him, shakes his head, then looks back up. "I debated about bringing it with me today for a long time. But well-" he shrugs, gives her a small half-hearted smile, "It was always meant for you. It seemed a shame to let another year go by without giving it to you."
This has to be the longest preamble to a gift in the history of the world, and she can't catch her breath and if he goes on like this for one more second she might suffocate.
"You shouldn't feel any pressure to accept if it makes you uncomfortable or-"
"No, no it's okay," she barely gets the words out on just the thinnest gasps of air.
"Oh okay, good," he blinks and lifts his hands a little as if puzzled by the fact they're empty, drops them ineffectually, "It's um, in the car."
Leslie drops her forehead to the table and laughs. It's seriously either that or cry. "I don't believe you. That entire speech-"
"I know," he rubs his hand across his face and gives her wry smile, "I'll go get it."
She turns and gets up from the table because she will very possibly die if she has to just sit here waiting for him to bring it back. "I'll come with you."
They walk in silence over to where Ben's car is parked on the street. He opens the passenger side door and reaches down into the glove compartment for something she can't make out. When he turns back around he's holding a slender rectangular box, carefully wrapped in heavy silver paper. It's approximately the shape you'd expect for a pen or maybe a necklace. But neither of those seems quite right given the circumstances, one too impersonal, the other too intimate.
Hesitantly, she takes it from his outstretched hands, begins to peel away the paper with more care and reverence than she's unwrapped a gift in a long time.
Ben keeps talking even as she pries open the lid on the leather case. "Like I said, you shouldn't feel like you have to keep it. I just-"
"Oh!"
It's not a pen.
It's not a necklace either.
It's a watch. An elegant, classic tank-watch in polished stainless-steel with what might be a mother-of-pearl face. And it's not a Cartier or anything so ridiculously expensive, but it's solid and well-made and far nicer than anything she's ever owned. And certainly not something any co-worker would ever get her. But it well might be something a very close friend would get her now.
"It's beautiful," she breathes.
"I'd wanted to get something you'd use. All the time. But I didn't want it to just be practical. I wanted it to be special. And you used to have that old watch with the frayed black leather band that was starting to look bad with your suits, but you kept wearing it and I thought-"
Leslie reaches out and puts a hand on his upper arm to cut him off. "I love it."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Ben smiles, his discomfiture giving way to an almost boyish shyness as he adds, "There's an inscription on the back."
He reaches out and picks up the watch, holding the backside up so she can read the engraving by the light of the street lamp. It's not a fancy script, just three simple words in a clean businesslike typeface.
Go Big.
Always.
Leslie can't help herself. She starts to cry.
"Hey." Ben pulls her into his arms without thought or pause, and presses his lips briefly to her hair, whispering softly, "Hey it's okay."
It is. It is okay. It's more than okay, and it's not okay at all. Because it's the most perfectly romantic thing anyone's ever done for her, and she's getting it five years too late. Because he kept it all this time and he almost didn't give it to her now. Because he'd always been so willing to follow her lead no matter how crazy and the one time he wanted her to follow his she said no.
Because he asked her to 'Go Big' and, instead, she went home.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." It comes out on a hiccupped sob, and then she's saying it over and over, and she can't seem to stop. "Sorry. Sorry."
Ben just keeps holding her, letting her cry, murmuring as he does so, "I know. Shh. It's okay. I know."
And the fact that he's the one comforting her over this is so incredibly wrong that for a moment it only makes her cry harder.
Finally she calms down enough to step away, swiping at her tears with the heel of her hand. "Sorry," she says again, laughing a little in embarrassment at the repetition, "I, um, I don't know-"
And she's about to say she doesn't know what came over her, but of course she does, they both know exactly what that was all about, and she doesn't want to just brush it off or shrug it aside like it didn't happen or doesn't matter. So she blows out a steadying breath and starts again.
"Thank you for this. Really it's- It's perfect."
Ben looks down at her, and there's something in his face, something she can't quite put her finger on, but for just a split-second he seems somehow lighter, younger, seems more like the man who bought this watch five years ago than he has been at any other time these past few months. "You're welcome."
"Can I-? Can I try it on?"
It takes him a moment to realize he's still holding the watch in his hand. "Oh, yeah. Here."
They do an awkward little dance when she reaches out to take the watch from him, just as he moves to put it on her. But finally they seem to coordinate their movements enough, and Leslie slips it on to her wrist, and fiddles with the clasp with fingers trembling so badly she almost drops it.
Ben puts a hand out. "Do you need me to, um-?"
She shakes her head in surrender and hands the watch back over with a laugh. "Please."
Taking her hand in his, he turns it over so the inside of her wrist is exposed, wraps the watch around and works the butterfly clasp closed with an efficient quiet, snick.
"There," he murmurs in satisfaction, like a load's been lifted or a goal accomplished.
She turns her arm to look, but the band is a little too big and the face slides around she does. Ben hooks a finger in the space between the band and her skin testing just how far off it is with a rueful smile. "Sorry 'bout that. I didn't realize you had such tiny wrists."
Leslie swallows hard, and prays he can't feel the rapid hop-step of her pulse against the back of his finger. "It's okay. I can just get a jeweler to take out a link or two."
"Good."
And this is about the time that something needs to happen. Anything. One of them needs to step away or a phone needs to ring or a car alarm go off or a meteor needs to hit a house or something. But nothing does and they both just keep standing there in the pool of light from the street lamp, his finger still hooked in the band of her watch, looking at each other.
Would a herd of elephants be too much to ask right now? Or a hoard of rubber ducks? Really she's kind of desperate here.
"I should probably get going." Ben says quietly, not actually making a move to goanywhere.
"Yeah. You have a long drive."
Nope. Not working. They're still just standing here.
She tries again.
"Thanks for making the trip down. It really meant a lot to me that you came."
"Wouldn't have missed it for the world."
Yeah, that's not doing it either.
And she is about ten seconds away from doing something really desperate like possibly running away screaming or dancing a jig or backing him up against his car and kissing him senseless or maybe all three in some as yet unspecified order-
A dog barks.
Oh thank god.
"I think Harrison's calling you."
Everything pops like a soap bubble. Leslie smiles and Ben steps back with a laugh. "Yeah, yeah, I should definitely get back before he finds the liquor or it won't be pretty. But this was great, and tell Ann thank you for inviting me."
"I will."
He gives her a brief hug whispering, "Happy Birthday, Leslie," against her temple, and then walks around the car and opens the driver's side door.
She can feel everything settling back into place. Still there's something just a little different, nothing drastic or eye-catching, just a small frame-shift to the right or the left. But it's definitely there.
"Hey, do me a favor."
"Yeah?"
"Call me when you get in tonight? Just so I know you got back okay."
It's the first time she's ever asked that, and she knows it's kind of a strange request to make of a forty-year old man who's lived most of his life alone and on the road, but Ben just smiles at her over the roof his car like it's the most natural thing in the world.
"Sure."
00
The rest of August and all of September comes and goes in an absolute blur. Almost every waking minute of her life is occupied by the campaign in some form or fashion, and she can feel election-day starting to bear down on her like a freight-train.
They don't have enough money for real offices and the entire first floor of her home has been taken over by posters and empty pizza-boxes and t-shirted volunteers on cell-phones coming and going at nearly all hours. Madison runs them all with an almost drill-sergeant like efficiency from her kitchen table, and sometimes Leslie forgets she doesn't actually live here.
There are mornings when she spends ten extra minutes in the shower just because she knows it's only time alone she's going to get all day.
Everything else in her life has fallen victim to her increasingly busy schedule. She hasn't spent any time with Abigail in four weeks and the last time she really spoke to Ann it was for thirty minutes on her front porch and then only because her friend showed up on her door-step at six a.m. coffee in hand.
Even Ben takes the hint after she answered her phone with a breathless 'Can I call you back' for the third time in a row, and proceeds to convert their interactions to text-messages. Random little notes he sends her throughout the week, ranging from "Breathe" to "Eat something" to "Harrison made a new friend today. I don't know how to tell him it's a mirror."Little life-lines, tethering her to reality, reminding her that no matter what happens she already has it pretty good.
Sometimes she thinks it's the only thing keeping her sane.
Which is why when Diane calls in September and instructs her to get out her calendar and find at least one free evening sometime between now and the end of October she can carve out to come up for Ben's birthday, Leslie does as she's told. Marks off the first Sunday in October in big red block letters (it's actually a week and a half after Ben's actual birthday, but Diane reassures her that won't matter) and threatens Madison with pain of death if she schedules something for her after three pm that day.
00
Madison for once actually takes her instructions to heart and sure enough the only thing on her calendar is a service and coffee at one the local churches that morning, so she's able to get to the address Diane gave her earlier than scheduled.
It's a modest townhouse of fairly recent construction, situated in a neighborhood on the northwest side of the city that looks like it's going through the kind of personality shift that happens every so often as people decide they don't want to commute quite so far or live in a house quite so big. And she's just thinking how it doesn't really fit what she pictured for Diane, when she's hears a dog barking and muffled "Coming."
And that is definitely not Diane's voice.
Ben opens the door, reaching down to hold a grey mutt by the collar, with a quiet, "Harrison stay," that's completely ignored, and looks up at her with broad pleased smile, "Hey you're early."
"Yeah, I made good time. Sorry if I-"
"No, no it's great." He pushes the door open a little wider, "Come on in, you can help."
Hesitantly she steps inside, "I'm sorry. I'm a little- When Diane said to come up for a dinner party, for some reason I thought it was at her house. I didn't realize this was your address."
"Oh, yeah, she probably should have made that clear." Ben kneels down to scratch behind one of Harrison's ears trying to calm him down. "Nope this is ours, isn't buddy?"
Harrison's response is to bark and make another excited lunge towards Leslie.
"Okay, okay. Sorry apparently introductions are required. Harrison this is Leslie. Leslie. Harrison."
Crouching carefully down on the floor of the entryway (and she's really beginning to rethink her choice to wear a dress), Leslie holds her hand out giving him a second to get used to her. "It's nice to meet you Harrison. I've heard a lot about you."
Harrison licks her palm in greeting and moves forward ducking his head to be petted. Ben lets him go, keeping a steadying hand on his collar, and smiles, "It's very possible your name's come up once or twice, too."
Leslie looks down at the dog. "Is that true?"
Harrison barks.
They spend a few minutes more in the foyer. She sits down on the hardwood floor and tucks her legs to the side under her skirt so Harrison can put his head on her lap as she pets him. It's honestly the most calming thing she's done ages and Harrison seems to be in no hurry to do anything else any time soon.
Finally Ben stands, motioning to her not to get up, when she moves to join him. "I think you've got a conquest."
"He makes me wish I had the time to have a dog of my own."
"Swing by whenever you're up here. From the looks of it I don't think he'll have any objection to being shared."
She drops her eyes to look down at the placid, contented animal on her lap. "Is that okay with you? Will you be mine, too, sometimes?"
Ben clears his throat. "Let me, um get your coat for you. You must be warm."
"Oh, thanks." Trying not to move from her position too much, she shrugs out of her trench. It's a little awkward doing seated, and Ben has to come to her rescue. Finally she gets untangled and he takes the coat.
He doesn't immediately go anywhere, just stands there looking down at her in surprise. Leslie ducks her head self-consciously to fiddle with the hem of her navy blue wrap dress. It's not that dressed-up, she's worn it to the office on more than one occasion, but it's a far cry from the jeans and un-tucked button-down Ben's wearing right now.
"There's every possibility I got dress-code for this evening wrong too. It's been kind of a crazy few weeks. Sorry."
"No, don't apologize. You look-" he stops, smiles. "I'll call Paul and Diane. We'll dress to match."
"Oh, you don't have to-"
He shakes his head, "It's my birthday. If I don't get to be arbitrary now, when do I?"
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The dinner "party" Diane mentioned, turns out to be just the four of them with Ben cooking. And she'd ask why on earth he would agree to cook for his own birthday, except that's immediately apparent from the moment she joins him in the kitchen. He's cooking because he lovesit. Moves around the well-equipped space with a relaxed, easy surety that's speaks of real joy.
There's something peaceful and soothing about watching him work, giving such focus to something so simple and everyday. Over the past few weeks, food has pretty much been reduced to fuel in her world, to be grabbed and consumed in between meetings and events without much thought or enjoyment. But food hasn't been the event itself in ages. Now sitting here with a glass wine, the smell of garlic and rosemary taking over the kitchen, she finds herself letting it be. Letting everything else, all the noise and stress and commotion of the last few weeks just slip away, like she's left it outside that door, back in Pawnee.
She looks on as Ben trims a large beef tenderloin with practiced skill. "Where'd you learn to cook?"
He doesn't look up. "Here and there. I actually picked up a lot from tv over the years if you believe it."
"I'm trying to picture you watching cooking shows."
"They can make pretty good background noise in a hotel room if I'm working late and there's not a baseball game on." He finishes trimming and seasoning meat and comes over to the sink to wash his hands.
"So that's it? You watched a lot of cooking shows and one day you got really hungry?"
He laughs. "No. No it probably started with my mom. After the um," he waves his hand vaguely, "after Ice Town and everything, well I had a lot of free time on my hands and my dad and I really- I mean he tried but-" he breaks off and reaches over for the towel to dry his hands. Stays silent until he finishes and then looks back up at her. "Anyway, I would sit in the kitchen with my mom while she cooked. You pick up more than you realize. No matter what was happening, she always insisted we sit down for dinner together. Even after-" he shakes his head, forces a small laugh "She could be so stubborn that way. But yeah, um-" he shrugs, "I guess some of it stuck."
It's not a big thing, not an earth-shattering secret or a life-changing revelation. And yet, it kind of is. It's intimate and personal. And he offers it to her so freely, without any real prompting or coaxing on her part. Like she has a right to know, simply by virtue of interest, of caring, she has a right to this piece of him.
She wants to give him something back in return. "My dad took me to JJ's for waffles every Saturday morning until, you know, until he-"
Ben stops her from having to complete the sentence with a touch on her wrist, and for a moment they just look at each other. Then he gives her hand a little tug, urging her up. "Come on wash your hands. I'm putting you to work."
"Oh, I don't think that's a good idea. I can't cook."
He moves over to pull out a clean cutting board, grabs a knife from the magnetic strip on the wall. "Not asking you to cook. Asking you to chop. Come on you can single-handedly organize two-hundred volunteers, but you can't chop a shallot?"
"I don't even know what a shallot is."
"It's like an onion but smaller and stronger. Look, cooking is about forty percent organization, forty percent patience, and the rest is just a matter of finding the right ingredients and knowing a few techniques. Certainly nothing Leslie Knope can't do." He tilts his head to the chopping board. "Come over here. I'll teach you."
"Okay, but if we spend your birthday dinner in the emergency room, don't say I didn't warn you."
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They don't spend his birthday in the emergency room.
Ben turns out to be a pretty good teacher, patient and thorough, with a nice sense of humor about the whole thing. When she goes to retrieve the salad greens from the refrigerator at his instruction and winds up knocking one of the ramekins full of something that she's pretty sure is dessert out onto the tile floor, spilling its contents and chipping the ramekin in the process, he just looks down at for a second, and then back up at her and says without missing a beat, "Okay that one's yours."
It's about that time that she starts to relax and enjoy herself.
Paul and Diane arrive with their customary cacophony of affectionate argument and far too much wine for four people. And sure enough, they are as promised 'dressed to match'. Though apparently getting Paul into anything more formal than jeans and a polo shirt is according to Diane "a miracle for the ages."
"Ben shouldn't have had you go through the trouble."
"No, no don't apologize. I'd almost forgotten that I'd married such a handsome man. Do you do anniversaries?"
"Like you want me to be wearing anything on our anniversary."
Ben makes a face and a gagging noise, "Ugh, please not before we eat or while we're eating or everreally." Points over to one of the bottles lined up on the counter with his knife, "But definitely not before you open that wine."
Paul plays sommelier all night, dispensing the wine with a quick, generous hand, barely letting anyone's glass get less than a quarter full throughout the entire meal. Which since it's a lazy three hour affair with time between courses to talk and laugh and debate and reminisce, means that by the time dessert's over and she and Ben have made their way out to small deck out back, Leslie is pretty-well buzzed.
Ben clips Harrison's collar to an extra long leash fixed to one of the posts and taps him on the head. "Go crazy boy."
Harrison's version of going crazy is to chase a squirrel into the common green space until his leash stops him and then turn around and chase another one. He does this about four times before finally figuring out his limited range of mobility, at which point he fixates on a single squirrel and begins to watch it as if guarding his territory.
Ben sits down on the steps with a sigh. "Every time. Never fails." Leslie moves to sit beside him, overbalances a little, and has to put a palm on his shoulder to steady herself. Automatically, his hand flies up to her waist to guide her down, "Careful."
"Thanks. I think I had more wine than I realized."
"I think we all did."
He looks back over his shoulder to where Diane and Paul are busy cleaning up (this and paying for the ingredients and what was definitely very good wine is apparently their birthday present). "Paul does not like to drink alone, and he really likes to drink."
For some reason Leslie finds this absolutely hilarious, drops her head to his shoulder giggling hysterically.
Yes, she has definitely had too much.
"I don't, um, I don't think I'm safe to drive."
Ben chuckles quietly under his breath and leans back a little, bracing himself on his hands. Makes no move to dislodge her from his shoulder. "No, I don't think you are, at least not for several more hours."
She'd been doing pretty well up until this point, but at the thought of having to make the two hour drive back to Pawnee at one in the morning, everything inside her just hurts. Leslie groans in objection. "Tired."
"Stay here tonight."
He says it so easily and casually—likes it's no big deal, like why wouldn't she—that it takes her a moment to really process the suggestion. Because sleeping under the same roof as Ben and 'no big deal' are still pretty much mutually exclusive concepts in her head.
But she's sotired.
Blearily, she slits her eyes open to look up at him. "Really?"
"Well, you're crazy if you think I'm about to let you get back on the road tonight."
"No," she sits up a little, shakes her head "No, it's you birthday. I'm not supposed to be a hassle on your birthday."
And she reaches to pull herself up to standing, but her muscles aren't really obeying her commands and Ben foils her efforts with nothing more than two lazy fingers hooked into the belt on her wrap dress. "That's right it's my birthday so you have to do what I say. Look if it makes you feel better, I promise not to put mints on your pillow."
She leans away from him, slouching against the post on her other side and concedes defeat, "Do you have a comfortable couch?"
"Even better I have a comfortable daybed in the spare room for exactly this purpose."
"You have a lot of drunk women sleep over in your spare room?"
He laughs, but doesn't take the bait. "Honestly I think your problem is more exhaustion than alcohol. Listening to you talk at dinner about what's going in your house? It's horrifying. I'm surprised you haven't cracked sooner. Stay here tonight. Take a long shower or a bath, and get a full night's sleep. Get up tomorrow morning and have a cup of coffee in peace. I'm usually out the door by seven at the latest. I can make sure you're on the road before then. You'll be back in Pawnee and ready to conquer the world by nine, nine-thirty tops."
Right now Leslie doesn't think he could make her a more appealing offer if he said he wanted to strip her naked and ravish her.
Wait-
No, yeah, it's a toss-up right now.
"I'll make you breakfast."
Okay, no, this wins.
He really is a very good cook.
00
Despite his disclaimer about mints on her pillow, Ben does just about everything but. Sets her up with clean sheets and fresh towels; a set of a spare flannel pajama pants and a soft thread-bare t-shirt to sleep in.
The last he sets on the bathroom counter with a quiet, "Knock on my door if you need anything," and turns to go.
Leslie reaches out and skims her fingers over the faded "I met 'il Sebast" that's just visible above the fold on the t-shirt. "Ben-"
He pauses in the doorway looks back. "Yeah?"
"Thank you for letting me stay in your home."
For some reason it comes out oddly formal and he tilts his head a little at the peculiarity of the phrasing. "You're welcome."
"It's a really nice home. You have a really nice home," she says it likes it's the most important thing in world and she can feel herself trying to say something else, but her brain's so much caramel and she can't figure out what exactly, so here she is trying to make do with inadequate substitutes.
Ben obviously isn't doing any better with the translation than she is, just shakes his head in bemusement. "Um, thank you."
She tries again, "You have this nice home and a great job. And Paul and Diane. Who are so nice. And Harrison. Harrison's a reallynice dog."
"Yes they're all very nice. Leslie-"
"So you're happy right? You have this really nice life, that you wouldn't- And you're happy, aren't you?"
Oh, there it is.
Ben puts his hand on the door frame and rests his head against it, shaking it slowly back and forth. "Of all the-" Sighs. "Yes. Yes, I'm happy."
She bites her lip and looks back down at where her hand has fisted in the fabric of the t-shirt, lets it go. "Good. I'm glad."
"And you? Are you happy?"
Leslie thinks about morning coffee with Ann and holding her god-daughter, thinks about late-night strategy sessions with Madison and town-meetings with her constituents, thinks about all those students of Diane's looking at her the way she used to look at her mother, thinks about the watch on her wrist and the man who gave it to her standing less than three feet away. Her lips curve up in a small, wistful smile, "Maybe more than I've ever been."
Ben smiles back, "Good. I'm glad."
And she can tell from his eyes that he genuinely means it.
He reaches for the door.
"You know you're part of that, right? That having you- in my life- That I wouldn't be as happy if you weren't. You know that, right? You should know that."
He doesn't say anything for a long moment, just looks at her. Then taking two steps forward, he reaches out and brushes a stray curl out of her eyes. Tucks it behind her ear, and presses a soft deliberate kiss against her forehead.
Steps away.
"Good night Leslie Knope."
Her eyes flutter open just in time to see the bathroom door close.
"Good night Ben Wyatt."
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