Leslie breathed hard, staring blankly at the red oak door. The knocker was a few short inches from her left hand, the doorbell a moment's notice from being pressed. But the doorbell would set off a chime in the house for a couple seconds, ringing throughout the house, or at least the bottom floor, where Ann was probably lounging on her pale blue couch after a long shift at the hospital, watching Grey's Anatomy or West Wing reruns until she fell asleep under her patterned red, yellow, and green afghan, her head crushed into one of those circular throw pillows with circles randomly stitched into the white leather cover.

Or, maybe not! Ann could have taken the late shift at Saint Joseph's, because Mandy, one of Ann's nurse friends, had gotten sick and Nurse Perkins had to fill in for her friend. Or maybe Ann got invited to her cousin Emmanuel's wedding at the last minute, and had to book it to Michigan. Or she was on a date with The Douche, whatever. She was probably just not home, and too busy to have to deal with any of Leslie's stupid little inconveniences.

"What are you waiting for?" Liz asked her, shifting the purple beret on her head.

Leslie turned to her friend. "Is this really worth it? For all we know, Ann isn't even here! Then when I knock on the door, and no one answers, I'll look like an idiot. Ha ha, stupid Knope, who doesn't even know when someone's home or not!"

"That's the whole point of knocking on doors, Les." Liz threw her hands up for effect. "Come on, are you chickening out? I only have five hours until my flight."

"No, no, I'm not afraid! I just think it's reasonable to consider that Ann may be too busy. She's probably too tired from all the working and pulling things out of people's butts and holding people's mouths open."

"First you say that she's busy, then you say she's tired. Just knock on the door, I don't have all the time in the world!" Liz said impatiently.

"You're not going to miss the flight!" Leslie stepped back from the door. "Pawnee's airport is so small, we don't even have room for TSA. I get there a half hour before the plane takes off."

The television writer frowned confusedly.

"Leslie?" called a familiar voice.

There was a series of footsteps, each getting increasingly louder towards the door, and Leslie backed away.

The person who opened the front door was dressed in baby blue hospital scrubs, complete with an off-center v-neck and two opposing pockets full of one half-eaten everything bagel and what appeared to be loose dental floss, respectively. Her plain brown hair was styled into a less than impressive messy bun, with flyaways dancing in the wind. Her mascara and eyeliner were still perfect, despite her lipstick being noticeably smeared and contour turning speckled from lack of washing. It was Ann. Beautiful, wonderful, old-Chinese-food-smelling rainbow pigeon: Ann Perkins.

Ann spoke first. "What are you doing here?"

Leslie glanced at Liz gratefully, then turned back to her best friend. "Ann, I am so so sorry."

Ann waved a hand dismissively. "Leslie, it's not your fault. You offered me a great opportunity and I shouldn't have turned it down. I don't even really like my job! You were right."

Leslie bit her lip. It was too late to ignore her mistakes.

"No," the Parks director sighed, "I'm not right. I'm wrong. I've forced you to do so much stuff for me. I painted your garage pink without asking you, I forced you to eat an entire cheesecake just so I could impress the pastry chefs at our yearly Pawnee Presents: Bake Off, and the whole Pawnee-Eagleton ice cream incident makes me cringe to think about. Those are only the things off the top of my head that I forced you to do!"

Ann responded, "But you forcing things on me is part of your charm, Leslie. I actually really like my pink garage. My next door neighbor's kids told me that they thought it was awesome, and I never would have realized that I want kids if it wasn't for the garage! And for the record, that was a delicious cheesecake."

"But, wait no, listen! Or… don't. Gah! This is too hard!" Leslie was kicking herself trying to prove that her relationship with Ann was bad, and she hated that. "Look, Ann, you amazing genius innocent naïve caterpillar, I wouldn't be telling you this if I didn't mean it. I have been…" she sucked in a breath, "a bad friend."

Ann watched her worriedly.

Leslie continued. "I still should have asked you if I was allowed to paint your garage, and I shouldn't have made you eat the cheesecake, no matter how good it was, and I shouldn't have forced you to watch all the Harry Potter movies, and made you go out on a date with Chris and taken away the Eagleton ice cream and submitted an application to make you the Health department's PR director."

Ann, for the first time, made no complaint. She just walked down the steps to where Leslie was standing, and wrapped her arms around Leslie's chest.

She stood, a little disoriented, taking a moment to examine what the heck was going on, then in turn hugged her best friend back.

And that was that.