Work Text:
Five times the library and the Parks departments fight...
Leslie Knope's late fees: $0.00
When Leslie is hired at the Parks and Recreation department of Pawnee, it's like a dream come true. Everyone is nice and welcoming. She spends days touring City Hall, talking to everyone, trying to get a feel of the place. She makes contacts, as one does when one wants to get ahead. She enrolls in two committees - first the Fun in the Sun committee, then the Clean Restroom Task Force. She gets a library card.
The library is nice, and they have a lot of biographies of important (female) historical figures. Leslie even manages to find a book on Eleanor Roosevelt she hadn't read before, and compliments the first employee she sees on the library's collection. The employee - Marci - answers with a smile. She recommends a couple of books to Leslie, who promptly devours and then returns them.
This goes on for a couple of months, polite and thoughtful exchanges over stacks of books. Eventually Leslie strays from the non-fiction section, taking out political thrillers, and then just thrillers. When she takes out The Da Vinci Code, Amy looks at her strangely from behind the counter.
"A bit of light reading, Leslie?" Amy asks, her voice a little strangled. Leslie smiles and nods, oblivious to Amy's reaction.
Leslie comes back the next day. "I read that book all night, it was so great!" she says, pointing to Da Vinci. "Do you have anything else by this Dan Brown guy? He's the best author I ever read. I learned so much about Da Vinci!" She babbles on about Jesus’ secret wife, and the Vitruvian Man reenacted by a naked Grampa, and the hidden parts of The Last Supper.
Leslie's smile lessens a bit as a group of library employees start circling around her. It's probably not on purpose, she reasons, that they all look so intimidating. Like vultures around a carcass. Or Ron on the days the diner across the street runs out of breakfast food after 10am.
"Here you go," says Marci, as she hands Leslie Angels & Demons. Her hand is icy cold when Leslie brushes it accidentally. Leslie tries not to run down the street as she leaves.
She reads the book. But she never returns it to the library.
---
Leslie Knope's late fees: $2.60
When the Parks department hears that they'll have to take the Sexual Harassment seminar with the people from the library, everyone groans. Ron, however, straight-up blanches and quickly escapes to his office. Leslie follows him, because a good employee should never leave her boss alone when he's in distress.
"Are you okay, Ron?" she asks, trying to take his temperature, which isn't easy as he's holding his head in his hands desperately.
"Leslie, you need to save me," he finally says.
"Of course, that's why I'm here," says Leslie, a bit surprised that Ron is asking for help. "I'll protect you from raccoons, Councilman Dexhart, and everything in between."
"That's not going to be necessary - I just need to find a way out of that seminar," he says.
"Oh, Ron, you can't ask me that. You know I'm already covering for you at the Equal Opportunity Committee, where you should really make an appearance from time to time. If you skip the seminar, it might give people the wrong idea. You could even appear to be" - she whispers the last word like it's a curse word - "misogynistic."
"What?" he asks her, his eyebrows scrunched in confusion. "It's not a woman thing! It's a library thing! I can't be in the same room as Ta- as the library employees for a sexual harassment seminar." He puts a lot of emphasis on "sexual". Which sort of comfirms Leslie in her belief that he shouldn't skip the whole thing.
"Oh. Well, I can understand that. Don't worry, I'll think of something."
Leslie spends hours trying to have the seminar rescheduled. The library won't bulge, though, so she plans complicated seating charts, trying to have the whole department in a circle around Ron (she's on his right, obviously). She maps out the whole area, trying to find library-free routes to cover bathroom breaks, coffee breaks, and bacon breaks. She researches the sexual harassment subject extensively, writing down questions to ask so the library ladies won't be able to say a word.
When they all get there, all of them walking in a pack around Ron (who is much more cooperative than usual), there's no sign of anyone from the library. They wait for fifteen minutes, everybody looking increasingly annoyed, when one of the City Hall interns comes in the room, whispering something to the presenter.
The presenter clears his throat, looking embarrassed. “Apparently, the library people decided that taking the class with you would not be conductive to a good learning experience.” Everyone gasps and groans, and the presentation starts amongst the insulted rants.
Her colorful maps and her painstakingly-researched questions lie useless on the chair next to her. "I hate the library," she mutters under her breath as the presenter rattles on about inappropriate behavior.
---
Leslie Knope's late fees: $6.70
In the mural competition, the library doesn't present a camel. They paint a lovely bookshelf, with dates and names representing Pawnee's history along the spines of beautiful books. It's all very idyllic.
When Leslie decides to go with their camel instead of Mark's perfect, boring image, it's mostly because she loves her department and the people in it. But it's also because she knows that Andy accidentally dropped a whole bucket of shoe polish on the library's mural the day before.
---
Leslie Knope's late fees: $13.40
When the government is shut down, the library stays open.
"How is that an essential service?" Leslie asks Ben, fuming. "Like nobody has Internet access at home? Who even reads books anymore?" He seems taken aback by her intensity and mumbles about the educative purpose of libraries. She refrains from making a scathing reply - she needs a pretty big amount of good will from Ben, and she is not going to waste it on something as useless as the library.
Tammy walks around City Hall like she owns the place.
"Your office isn't even here!" Leslie shouts at her one day. Ben looks worried, maybe because Leslie's about to take her essential personnel card and throw it at Tammy. After that, he spends an hour talking in hushed tone with Chris as she works on her latest project, trying not to look at them too often.
When Ben comes back and tells her the library's now going to be opened just on weekends, she can't help herself - she throws her arms around his neck and kisses him.
---
Leslie Knope's late fees: $41.80
"It's Greg Pikitis' last Halloween before he heads out to college, guys," Leslie briefs her team on All Hallow's Eve’s Eve. "I hope you all have your schedule and your maps. He is not, I repeat, not going to get us again."
Tom and Donna grumble a bit, because apparently the Snakehole lounge had some big event going on October 31st, but everyone else looks determined enough to satisfy Leslie. Andy and April are going to stay at the office, and everyone else is going to patrol the city's various parks, and everything is going to be perfectly fine. (But Leslie does miss having a cop boyfriend for a minute.)
Everyone is set to meet at 11pm in the office to celebrate the first of many Pikitis-less Halloweens. But when she arrives with Ben, the door is ajar. Leslie feels something icy cold around her heart.
"Are you kidding me? How did he do it? Where are April and Andy?" asks Ben as he looks around their ruined office. There's toilet paper and paint all over, and someone replaced all of Leslie's photographs of women politicians with men. (Mustached men, at that.) There’s even some kind of four-armed mutant TP figure behind her desk. Leslie walks around, silently, because she can't find a way to accurately express the fury she feels inside.
April and Andy come running after a few minutes, Pikitis in tow. "We got him!" Andy says from the hallway, panting. "He tried to sneak in the back door, but I saw him, and we ran after him, and here he is! Nothing will be TPed tonight!"
Leslie opens the door to the devastated office, and Andy gasps as he takes it all in. Leslie's face crunches up as she looks at Pikitis. "HOW?" she finally explodes. "How did you do it?"
April is the one to answer. "There's just no way it could have been him," she says. "When we left, everything was fine, and we've been chasing him halfway around town since then."
"All right, tell me then. Do you have a twin? Did you build yourself a clone? Was it voodoo?" Leslie asks. Andy shakes Pikitis' shoulder to get him to answer, which makes Ben express concern for the legality of keeping a minor against his will and interrogating him. Pikitis just seems to find the whole thing extremely amusing, though, and Leslie suspects it's partly her still-crunched face's fault.
"Can I see what I supposedly did?" he asks. In the meantime, Ron, Ann and Tom came back, so Leslie gives an angry tour of the office to everyone.
"Well, whoever they were, the pranksters were creative," Ann says as she points to the toilet paper figure behind Leslie's desk. "That's Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man."
Leslie feels cold dread washing over her as she walks quickly to see what Ann is pointing at.
"Oh my god," she says.
Pikitis just smirks.
---
... and one time they don't:
Leslie Knope's late fees: $0.00
One day, the library's computers crash, which erases everyone's late fees.
(What were you expecting? It's the library. They're the worst people in the world.)