Work Text:
Ben moves back to Partridge and tries to be happy about it, he really does. He gets a good job at an accounting firm thanks to all his experience and he moves in with his brother Henry after his parents prove to be a little too insufferable. He pays rent. Helps with groceries. He takes walks at midnight where he lets himself cry as long as he needs to.
Leslie moves in with her mom and throws herself into her work at the Parks and Rec department in Pawnee City Hall. It's easy for her to get through tragedy as long as there's work to be done, and it's now that she seems to do her best job. It's not long before her superiors notice her excellent work ethic and promote her to Deputy Director of the Parks department. She can't stop staring at the title under her name on her desk and she doesn't let herself cry, not for a very long time.
Ben doesn't stop thinking about Leslie for a single day. He sees her in everything he does, in everyday, mundane moments. He finds himself wanting to text her random things, having to delete messages that he almost forgets he can't send anymore. He can't even look at the sun without thinking of her, and everyday he wonders what he did wrong. Ben has loved Leslie since he was eight years old. He will love her for the rest of his life.
Leslie only thinks of work and parks and how to make Pawnee better. Her energy is unstoppable and she is powered by sugar and caffeine because she no longer sleeps. Sleep is dangerous to Leslie. Sleep is when she starts to shut down and there's no longer anything left to stimulate her brain and there's just enough room for thoughts of Ben to sneak in while she's lying in bed. There have been a few terrible nights of weakness where she finds herself pulling Ben’s Letters to Cleo shirt out of her drawer and holding it to her chest, wishing it still smelled like him after all this time. She stops trying to sleep after nights like that. She decides to work until her body forcefully shuts her down.
Ben feels like his depression is getting worse. He tries odd hobbies in an attempt to distract himself from the physical pain in his chest. He learns to cook a proper calzone. He dabbles in claymation videos. He plays a lot of board games and even starts to imagine rules for his own. It works, for a time. He sleeps too much. He goes to bed early and wakes up after lunchtime and maybe he's taking too many days off work now. His dreams plague him, because he sees her in them everytime.
Leslie gets worse and worse every month. She's sitting at her desk at work while Tom Haverford talks to her about permits and she remembers the feel of Ben’s hands on her back. She remembers dancing together in their apartment and she remembers Ben meeting her mother. His firm handshake, how nervous he was but how thoroughly prepared he was to seem confident. She pictures him running his hands through his hair until it's messy and stands up straight and she gets lost in imagining how he used to kiss her when her rants were getting a little too long and she needed to shut it down.
Ben’s dreams are full of Leslie. At night sometimes he wakes up and imagines that she's still there. That if he were to roll over, her face would be next to his, whispering how much she loves him. She loved him. Leslie said she loved Ben, and she left. Why did she leave?
Leslie can't focus on work and when she gets home, she locks her bedroom door and sinks to the floor, pulling on Ben’s Letters to Cleo shirt. It's the first time she's worn it since he moved away. It's bigger than she is, and she drowns in it, and for the first time, she wonders if she's made the biggest mistake of her life.
Ben has nothing of Leslie's to hold. He wears his green plaid shirt that she used to steal, the one she loved to sleep in sometimes, and that is the closest he can get to holding her. He lies across the ground in his bedroom and stares at his computer screen, keeping tabs on her media, making sure she’s alright. They still have mutual friends. She's doing great in work, and has lots of big events coming up. Ben can physically feel Leslie forget him. He tears out a sheet of paper, and in a classic Leslie move, starts to create a list, titled: How to Be Something You Miss.
Leslie let's herself fully mourn the death of her relationship with Ben Wyatt. She still sits in his shirt and she sobs, and she wishes she can take it all back. She wants to call him, but she can't. She won't. He will forget her. He will learn to hate her. It would be far too little much too late.
Ben takes a chance. A couple of friends from Pawnee, Tom Haverford, Andy Dwyer, April Ludgate, invite him to visit. He wants to say no, feels like he probably should, but he doesn't. He’ll be staying with Andy and April and maybe it'll be good for him to see friends, maybe move on, go back to Pawnee for closure, if nothing else. Ben will be okay, he has to be. He packs a bag and gets on the first plane to Indiana.
Leslie knows he's back in Pawnee. Andy told her. He clearly wasn't supposed to, because as soon as it slips out he claps a hand over his mouth and falls to the floor. She would check if he's okay, but she has a lot of planning to do. She gets home from work early and starts up a new binder with a one step plan: Get Ben Back.
And Leslie Knope is nothing if not stubborn.