Archive of Our Own

It’s that weird period of post-Christmas time that is almost depressing in its finality, but everyone is giddy for the New Year anyway. Ben doesn’t mind this time of year, except for the snow, even being from Minnesota didn’t get him to be “used to” snow. Also, city snow is different, and New York City snow is a whole other monster.

He stuffs his hands into the pocket of his worn peacoat before starting his walk to the subway. It’s weird to be going to the theater this early, but Leslie texted him to show up earlier, and it’s not like he was doing anything. And even if he was, the last couple months have been dedicated to answering Leslie’s every beck and call, so why should this be any different?

The subway isn’t so crowded, a lot of New York still gone for the holidays. Ben didn’t go home for Christmas, he told his family he was busy, and he was thankful to not have to make something up this year.

“Why can’t you be here?” Henry asked on Christmas morning, during the pass-the-phone-around portion of his family’s Christmas festivities. “It really sucks around here without you.”

Ben smiled at that, actually missing his brother. “Ah well, I’m in a show and we’re rehearsing.”

“No one is taking a holiday break? Even actors take breaks, Ben.”

“The director is local so she expects us all to be,” Ben said.

That’s partly true. She did let some people go home, and she didn’t strictly ask anyone to stay for rehearsal, but Ann stuck around, along with April and Andy. So Ben decided he could torture himself by sitting in Lot 48 and hanging lights with Andy while he listened to Justin say all the lines Ben needed to memorize.

When he wasn’t helping Andy, he sat in the audience and watched. This is mostly what he does. Sometimes, when Andy is playing guitar, Ben tries to play the keyboard with him. There just isn’t much for Ben to do, but he’s got a solid part in a promising new show.

Ben is part of the three person ensemble. He’s Justin’s understudy, which is significant, but doesn't really mean anything. For now, Ben sings the chorus of “It Isn’t So Scary” and adds depth to “I’m Considering It” in the small crowd of a coffee shop. The show is small and intimate and powerful. It’s wonderful, really, very simple and fresh with it’s own hiccups that are endearing and seem to work.

Justin and Leslie wrote it together, like some up and coming musical theater power couple.

Previews were the week before Christmas, and they were the talk of the town. Promising was the word Ben heard most. They open for a small run in Lot 48, a tiny black box theater that is perfect for now, even though there’s already talk of an extension. No one has said Broadway yet, due to superstition.

But Ben likes the hope, hangs onto it a like a little lifeline; the tiniest of lifelines. The kind that allows him to tell his mom that he’s actually a bigger part than he really is; it points him in the direction of a write up some musical theater lover posted on their tumblr about the preview.

It’ll get there. He moved to New York and he slaved away at The Little Bookstore each morning, auditioned every weekend, danced in so many ensembles, everything he was afraid he’d be stuck with since he’s been here. Soon he will be on broadway, just like he said he would, just like he was voted to be in high school. Hopefully.

Ben steps off the train and takes the steps two at a time up into the cold streets of New York. It’s starting to snow and Ben pulls his coat tighter around his body. He should've brought a hat. He ducks his head and quickens his pace down the three blocks, turning down a small alley to walk through the unlocked door of Lot 48.

On the outside, it doesn’t look very impressive. It’s just a portion of a brick building with a plain black door, LOT 48 spray painted on it in stencil. A flyer for POSSIBILITIES, a New Musical is taped to the door. April made it, it’s simple, with a silhouette of a woman, her suitcase on the ground, spilling with things like coffee mugs and books and balloons, all of it rising in color and detail around her as if the gravity has been turned off for everything except her.

Inside, it’s also not so impressive. It’s a small theater, only 60 seats, five more available for standing room, if they ever needed it. The space is weird, the booth is at an angle instead of directly center of the stage, in a small loft that actually is above a row of seats. There isn’t much room up there, usually Orin is there alone, April behind the slats they built, assisting set changes. The band consists of Burley and Andy with a keyboard, guitar, and the occasional tambourine or other small percussion instrument.

The house lights are on and Leslie is sitting in the middle of the small stage with different parts of New York scattered behind her on painted slats. A suitcase is laying down in front of her and her script is on top of it, open. She’s scribbling things in it and flipping pages, scribbling some more.

Leslie is so tiny. Even this small theater seems to swallow her when she’s like this: crumpled on stage with only her script. Her blond hair is pulled away from her face in a small bun on the top of her head. She’s wearing her usual tight jeans, but Justin’s oversized sweater isn’t covering her anymore, instead she’s wearing a winter coat that she didn’t shed when she walked in, whenever that was. She keeps biting her lip, chewing it almost, as she scans the pages and writes. Ben walks toward her, taking off his jacket.

“Am I the only one who knows how to show up on time?” Ben asks.

Leslie jumps a little, but doesn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he scared her. She wipes her face and turns to Ben and he waits for her quip, a job for him to do that she gives him with a snap.

He and Leslie don’t get along, for a reason he can’t remember. She cast Ben in her musical and then decided to hate him and he’s just been returning it.

“Andy and April are coming in later.”

When he stops at the lip of the stage, which is only two feet off the ground, Ben notices that her eyes are red, her cheeks splotchy and tear stained. She looks away from him, as if she can tell he’s discovering all of this.

“We have to make some changes,” Leslie says.

Her voice shakes. Ben looks around the theater for Justin, but it’s clear he’s not here, and it’s becoming clear why. Leslie takes a deep breath, a deeper breath than he’s ever seen her take (Ben wonders if Leslie even breathes half the time. Or sleeps.), and then she’s sitting straighter, her chin up.

“How off book are you with Noah?” Leslie asks, her eyes finally flicking back to him. Still red, still sad. She looks back down to her script.

“Completely,” Ben says. “Leslie, is--”

“Okay. We’re going to run the show when Andy and April get here. Tom will take your spot in the ensemble and he says he has a friend who can fill in for Tom, but I figure it won’t be too hard. We’ll rehearse with you as Noah until it feels good.” Leslie flips through her script until she has it open to her calendar for the month of December and January. “Can you do four nights a week of rehearsals for tech week? I was going to keep it at three but now I’m nervous.”

“Yeah, sure,” Ben says, his heart racing. “Leslie--”

“You wrote in my script again,” she says, shaking her head. “I told you to stop.”

“I used pencil and they’re just suggestions,” Ben argues back, the curiosity almost gone from him. This fighting, this is familiar and nice. Not as heartbreaking or nerve wracking as the last ten minutes have been. “You can erase them. You don’t see the show as much as I do.”

She nods and doesn’t say anything, her shoulders sloping again, spine rolling forward. Ben stands at the lip of the stage, watching her, wondering what he should say or do as she crumbles over her script. Leslie’s hands grip the pages and her head falls, keeps falling, as her face scrunches.

She’s going to cry. She’s going to cry right in front of him, the man she yells at and gives meaningless jobs to. The one she always tells to stop writing in her script, the one she’s had stand in for Justin once for blocking and she just swatted at him the whole time and they argued about the best placement of Noah during “Tiny Treasures.”

She shakes and he hears the strained gasp as she starts to cry. Ben takes a slow step onto the stage and starts to bend down just as the door of the theater flies open.

“Leslie!”

Ben spins and sees Ann running down the short aisle to the stage. Ben backs away just as Ann crashes onto the stage and wraps her arms around Leslie. Ben doesn’t mean to watch them, but Leslie absolutely crumbles in Ann’s arms and Ann keeps whispering to her and squeezing her. Ann says, “I’m going to kill him,” and Ben takes that as a cue to walk away. He walks up to the booth and digs in a small box for his script. He’s glad he left it here. He usually uses Leslie’s so he can leave notes for her, anyway. But now, it looks like he’ll need his own.

He can’t help but listen to the soft quiet of Leslie’s sobs and Ann’s reassurance as he flips through his script and highlights his new lines. He writes down some blocking he knows just to run it over in his head. Leslie squeaks something down below and Ben hates himself for eavesdropping, but he hears what happened. He hears that Justin is bored, Justin wants to do something bigger, Justin slept with someone else. Ben’s veins run hot, his fist grips the pencil in his hand until it breaks.

Leslie is a pain in the ass, but she doesn’t deserve this. She’s worked hard for this show and she’s the reason this show has any buzz. Justin is a talented writer and performer, yes, but Leslie is the star of this whole thing. She lifts the show and it flies only because of her, wings beating hard and fast and electric. She’s the beacon, she’s the sun of this universe.

You rise and the world is awake, The birds start singing, The flowers are growing, And everything is possible.

The world answers to your light, They sing, “The sun is out, We’re ready for anything, Life is worth living, Thank you for shining.”

Ben always imagined Justin wrote those lyrics for Noah with every intention and notion that it was about Leslie Knope. Maybe it was, maybe he did, but it’s clear it didn’t mean much to him, maybe. It definitely didn’t anymore.

“Ben,” Ann says and Ben looks down at the pair, now standing. Leslie’s head is dipped down so he only sees her blond head. “We’re going to take a walk. Want us to bring back some breakfast?”

“Sure,” Ben says. “Thank you.”

Ann gives him a tight smile, the women walk out of the theater, and Ben is alone. He hops down from booth and walks to the stage where Leslie’s script sits open on Sarah’s suitcase. She uses the suitcase throughout the show. During “It Isn’t So Scary” she packs it full of things, from birdhouses to clothes. As she is walking around singing, “Excuse Me, I’m Sorry,” she carries it. Ben even takes it from her during the montage as a mugger, but she gets it back through a very theatrical (and funny) recovery. He picks up her script and jots something down on her title page where she’s scribbled various notes and phone numbers and dollar amounts, and places it and the suitcase upstage.

Ben clears his throat, looks out into the seats, illuminated by the unflattering, very not-so-theater like house lights. There’s a tear in one of the backs of the chairs in the fourth row.

“Hey, watch it,” Ben says, trying out a voice of Noah that isn’t recognizable for him. He always heard the lines he needed to remember in Justin’s voice. Now he fights to get that voice out of his head. “Oh, I’m sorry, excuse me.”

This is Noah’s first introduction on stage. He runs into Leslie’s character, Sarah, who is just finishing her montage of fighting New York City, suitcase in hand. In his mind, Ben hears Leslie’s response in his head. He imagines her pulling the suitcase back, sees her face studying him, and then shaking her head.

“Why yes, I do know where that is,” Ben says and takes the step toward her, pantomiming taking her suitcase and holding it in his hand. “It’s just this way.”

He points and walks forward, turns when the stage ends and goes the other way, hears the music swell again in his head, almost hears the echo in the room even though he’s alone.

“Excuse me, I’m sorry, my name is Noah, who are you?”

He hears her sing, “Excuse me, I’m sorry, I’m Sarah.”

He stops and moves like he’s been shoved, just like he’s seen Justin do so many times, Tom walking between him and Leslie.

“Be careful,” Ben sings. “Don’t let anyone push you around in the city, Sarah -- excuse me, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you’re from New York, Sarah, but don’t let the world tackle you, Sarah.”

“Excuse me, I’m sorry, but you don’t know me, Noah.”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry, you have to excuse me, Sarah, but I’m new to going outside again, Sarah.”

“Oh,” Leslie responds in his mind, he almost sees her here with him, in Justin’s oversized sweater, her hair in pigtails, before Justin broke her. “Please excuse me, Noah, I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

There’s a lull in music, and Ben pretends to see the hotel she is supposed to stay in, the one he led her to, and he hands her the suitcase.

“Here you are,” he sings softly. “Good luck, Sarah, remember the city runs on a grid and it’s easy to find your way around.”

He sees Leslie’s beautiful, playful smile, the one that lights up the entire stage and ignites something in Justin, usually. Now it needs to light up something inside Ben. In Noah.

“I’m from New York, I told you.”

“Excuse me, I’m sorry,” Ben sings. “I’ll remember that next time, Sarah, I’ll remember you are from New York City, Sarah, and I’ll remember not to warn you about the city, but you see, Sarah, I’ve been hurt by this stupid city and my stupid heart, so excuse me, I’m sorry when I say, you should just be careful of anything and everything.”

He sees her, not as Sarah now, but back in the middle of the stage crying over her script and Ben’s heart breaks a little, wondering if she’ll still shine as brightly when she takes the stage and is a character in a world she created with her ex-boyfriend.

He hears her sing, sees her sing from that spot over her script.

“It’ll be okay, Noah, I’m sorry, please excuse me, but I believe it will all be okay, just give yourself some time.”

It sounds sad and not optimistic this time in his head and Ben sits on the edge of the stage just like Noah does as Sarah disappears up and into the hotel he led her to.

“Excuse me, I’m sorry, Sarah, but that just isn’t true at all,” he sings and closes his eyes to imitate the blackout.

~

When Leslie and Ann return, Leslie’s face is refreshed, the cold turning her nose red. Her eyes are clear and she’s even smiling a little as Ann passes Ben a bagel and puts the extras on the stage. Ann plops into a chair and digs her bagel out and Leslie does the same as Ben thanks them and eats his own.

Leslie takes a breath after finishing a bite of her food.

“Justin is no longer in the show, Ben. I’m sure that was clear, but I realized I didn’t really say it,” Leslie says.

“Okay,” Ben says, swallowing.

“So, congratulations, you’re Noah.”

Ann smiles at Ben, a sort of sad, encouraging smile.

“Thank you,” Ben says, because it feels like he should say that. Say something.

“Um, you’ll do great,” Leslie says as if it’s a struggle to say it. Ben likes that, though, it means she’s returning to her old self. The one that hates Ben. “When we cast you, it was on purpose. You really were Noah for us.”

That does actually make Ben’s chest lighten. “Thank you, Leslie.”

She smiles and takes another bite of her bagel. They eat in silence and are joined by Andy and April, who dig in the bag for food.

“Sorry, Leslie,” Andy says and Leslie nods. April gives Leslie a pat on the shoulder.

“Thanks, guys.” Leslie claps her hands together and rubs the crumbs off her pants and her hands. “Eat up, we have a lot of work to do. Ben!” Ben looks up at her as she stands, hands on her hips. “What are you doing? You should be looking over your script or something, do something useful, you’re not going to ruin this show for me.”

Ben smiles at her, a slow growing smile that takes over his entire face. She scrunches her nose at him.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

She’s back, maybe not all the way yet, but she has time, they can give her time. They’ll be okay.

“Go!” Leslie says and he does, they all do.

Everyone grabs their scripts and they sit and read through it, singing along to Andy’s guitar. April measures Ben and goes out to buy his costumes at Goodwill.

Leslie tells Ben all the ways he’s not delivering lines right, how his voice should crack in one spot and rise in others. For now, Ben nods, and writes down her ideas. He doesn’t have the heart to tell her she’s just telling him to do it just like Justin.

Justin hardly deserves to be associated with this at all; Ben maybe taps his finger too hard on his name on the title page of the script when they’re taking a lunch break. He won’t play Noah like Justin and he’ll either sneak that by Leslie or he’ll tell her another day. Not today.

Throughout the day, Leslie becomes lost. He catches her eyes going blank and wondering past everyone to something else -- somewhere else. Sometimes he feels her eyes so hard and dark on him as he sings Noah’s songs, but she doesn’t look at him when they go through any of their songs together. When they sing “Home” there’s no heart in it and everyone looks somber at the end.

Ben doesn’t feel as excited as he probably should when he leaves. He’s a main character of the musical, the new musical that’s going to blow up, he knows it. This is exactly where he wants to be, there’s something romantic and wonderful about being here instead of just scoring a good role in an established show. This is something he can grow with, something he can help build, something really important.

His roommate, Chris, has the appropriate reaction. Ben tells him over a carton of leftover chow mein and Chris whoops and yells and hugs Ben very hard, perhaps too hard. Usually, Ben isn’t a huge fan of Chris’ outbursts of positivity and hugs and vegan bread loaves, but this is nice. Chris is feeling all the ways Ben should be feeling, and Ben will feel it too. Just not yet.

~

The Little Bookstore is a tiny children’s bookstore in a corner shop that’s hardly bigger than Ben’s bedroom. Ben is one of three employees, and the shop closes at 6 every day. It’s better than waiting tables and he can never be called in for a late shift, making his schedule perfect for auditions and rehearsals. He works just enough to get by, but he doesn’t need much anyway. He buys himself a comic book once a week as a special treat and he’s content with that.

Ben sits on the counter in the mornings, before anyone comes in. He sips his coffee and reads the news on his phone, checks his e-mail. A kid, or kids, with their nannies will usually come in after about a half hour and Ben works until Jen or Joan arrive. Today, it’s Jen. She’s an actor, too, and when he tells her about taking over for Justin, she hits his arm, hard.

“Ow,” Ben says, rubbing the sore spot.

“Why are you telling me this like someone died? This is incredible.”

“Well, it’s shitty, for Leslie.”

“Yeah, whatever, she’ll get over it. Men are stupid -- offense taken -- and Justin was shit. He’s -- whatever, okay -- he’s a good writer, I guess, and that show is pretty good, but only because of Leslie. Point is, Justin sucks.” Jen sticks her tongue out and rolls her eyes, putting a thumbs down in front of her chest.

“Really?” Ben tilts his head, grabbing a stack of books they just got in. He’ll put them out before his lunch break. “He’s not bad.”

“I didn’t say he was bad, but Leslie’s carrying the show.”

“Ugh.” Ben rubs his eyelids and takes a breath before grabbing a book and placing it on the shelf. “Leslie hates me and now I have to take the role of her ex-boyfriend and make it convincing.”

“Acting, Ben, acting.” Jen grabs him and spins him around, shaking his shoulders. “This is a good thing, a thing you’ve been wanting and deserve. Fucking kill it.”

Ben smiles, the intensity of Jen’s words buzzing in his muscles, along his veins. She’s right. She’s so right. He deserves this, he’s been working his ass off for years in New York and this is his chance.

Jen shoves him and he shelves more books and sweeps the floor, riding the high of his new role, of Jen’s words on his back, of this pivotal spin in his life.

Until he gets to Lot 48 and Leslie looks up at him with her sad, lost eyes. They focus, though, into something angry and familiar and Ben’s thankful for that, even if it has taken his excitement away for now.

“You’re late,” Leslie says.

“You know, technically, I’m on time, because this rehearsal was not planned and I agreed to it a mere thirty minutes ago,” Ben shoots back, jumping onto the stage.

“Thank you for coming,” Leslie grumbles.

“What was that?” Ben asks, cupping his hand around his ear.

“Thank you for coming,” Leslie says louder with a shove to his chest.

Ben stumbles back, smirking at her, and she scrunches her face and turns, talking to Andy and Burley. Ben turns around and slides off his coat, tossing it on a first row seat.

“Okay,” Leslie says. She takes a breath. Ben faces her. “We should run some of Noah’s songs, with blocking. I just… I want to see.”

“As you wish,” Ben says.

Leslie eyes him and then hops off the stage. It’s quite a jump for her, actually, considering how short she is. There’s a part in “Tiny Treasures” where Leslie jumps off the stage and she makes that tiny step down into diving off a cliff.

Ben watches her take a seat in the fourth row, center, and Leslie grabs her script from the seat next to her and flips through it. She doesn’t look up when she says, “‘I’m Considering It,’ from the top.”

Andy counts down and Leslie points to downstage left, where Ben is supposed to be at the top of the song.

The music starts and Ben tries to remember the blocking, but uses it more as a guide than actual rules. That isn’t usually his style, but he doesn’t know his place in this role yet. Hopefully, Leslie is fine with it (she won’t be fine with it).

He pantomimes getting a cup of coffee and nods at the invisible Tom who is the cashier. That used to be his role. Ben’s fingers grip the invisible coffee cup and he stands center stage, smiling down at the air in his hands and begins to sing.

It’s a happy song, interwoven with doubt and sadness. Noah doesn’t want to pursue Sarah, or any woman, after his ex-girlfriend, who is never mentioned by name, breaks his heart. Ann plays her during “Clouds and the Possibility of Rain” but that’s all the audience sees of her.

Ben considers Noah to be quite a romantic, but Noah doesn’t know it. He blames the city for breaking his heart, along with his ex, and he’s rather poetic when he sings. Noah likes the struggle, the heartbreak, the city that bites back, so he can have the burden of his life -- love and personal -- help him feel so much. His romanticism may be what makes him decide to run to Sarah at the reprise of “Clouds and the Possibility of Rain”.

Andy and Burley fill out the chorus, singing along with Ben. Ben sits on a prop table and sings to the invisible patron in a chair, “What do you think? I don’t want my heart broken again, but I’m considering it.”

That’s not in the blocking, but Ben always thought it wasn’t quite right that Noah sings that line at the audience when there are coffee shop customers to play with. Leslie doesn’t stop him so he keeps going, jumping off the table and rounding the shop, leaving his imaginary coffee cup behind.

He takes center stage, and the lights don’t shift like they usually do, the dull house lights illuminating everyone in the room, even the weird stain in the ceiling. Ben belts his soliloquy, bending his knees with the line, “and if my heart breaks again, I cannot take it,” and he’s breathing hard at the end, eyes big and desperate as he waits for the music to come to the right place for him to sing his last line.

“I’m considering it,” he sings, in the light, comedic way Justin does, because it’s one of the best things Justin does with Noah — makes him funny.

Noah belts his heart out, says all the reasons why love is worth it, says everything that could go wrong, that could break him, punches the air and celebrates love and Sarah and then pulls the rug out from under the audience with his casual, flat confession of considering this choice as if he didn’t just put on a one man show in a coffee shop all about it.

The music ends with a quick finality to compliment the joke and Ben takes a moment to decompress and takes a step back, blinking. He shakes out his shoulders and is about to ask if he can get water when Leslie’s voice interrupts him.

“‘The Sun,’” she says.

Her voice is different, not as commanding as it usually is with Ben. Hell, even her tone when he got here held its usual sting. Now it sounds rough and quiet, like her throat is dry and she’s not using as much air as she should to yell across the theater. Ben looks at her as the music begins for “The Sun” and her blue eyes turn from something soft and curious to narrowed, evaluating.

Ben rolls his shoulders again and rubs the back of his neck as the music goes on and he’s thankful that Burley and Andy give him another bar of the opening to get ready.

This song is so specific to Leslie, and of course Sarah’s character, but all the descriptors are incredibly accurate to Leslie Knope it’s hard to sing it or hear it without thinking of her. He imagines when Justin wrote this song, he just stared at Leslie and wrote, spilled everything about her on the page. If Ben wrote it, it would be similar sure, but he’d add some stuff about her being insufferable and a real pain in his ass, and maybe he’d mention something about how her nose scrunches when he comments on how short she is. That doesn’t sound that poetic, though; Ben guesses there’s a reason Justin writes songs and Ben just sings them.

Ben walks along the stage, the blocking like an incredibly toned down homage to “Singin’ in the Rain”. Noah does a spin or two, even turns Ann and bows her in happiness. Sarah is usually on stage, too, filtering in and out of Noah’s visible memory as he sings about her, how he’s in love with her, how he’s taking on this challenge that life has handed him. Leslie, however, is still seated in the audience.

Until the chorus.

She stands and walks up to the stage and resumes the blocking as if she’s been there the entire time. She walks along the lip of the stage, pretending to balance on a ledge around a fountain in Central Park, she silently skips up stage right and crosses behind him to stage left. His heart hammers, wondering, until she approaches him as the bridge starts. She grabs his hand and they waltz across the stage, tripping over feet, but laughing through the music. They’ll have to practice this.

He twirls her, letting her go and she falls back to the side of the stage. She’s supposed to disappear behind the slats but she stays put against the wall to watch him as he sings the closing refrain.

“I answer to your light. I sing, ‘Sarah is out, I’m ready for anything, life is worth living, thank you for shining.’”

He’s not supposed to deliver that ending to the stage right wall, but that’s where Leslie is and his gaze followed her there and never left. He can see her chest heaving with quick breaths, her eyes big, mouth parted just enough for him to notice the separation of her lips. He’s mesmerized by her, the way that she watches him is completely new and overwhelming. They stare at each other as the music fades out. It’s quiet for a beat, for two, and Ben swears he can feel the hairs on his neck stand and his blood rushing through his veins.

“Wow!” Andy yells, giving his guitar a quick, hard strum. Leslie and Ben both jump and turn to him. Ben keeps blinking, as if he’s just woken up. “That was awesome! Leslie! Ben is awesome!”

Ben’s ears burn as Andy keeps harping about how great he is. Leslie rolls her eyes, but her smile is genuine and kind, not one that’s usually reserved for Ben.

“Yeah,” Leslie says, jumping off stage. “I guess he’ll do.”

~

Ben is so busy. For the next week he’s everywhere except at home, and when he’s there, it’s just for a few hours on his mattress. He sleeps, not the good kind of restful sleep, just the necessary kind that helps him survive. Four days a week he spends his days at The Little Bookstore, running to Lot 48 at night to argue with Leslie about changes he wants to make. She loves to tell him, “No,” and Ben loves pulling her ponytail when he’s feeling overwhelmed and just needs to argue with her for a moment. He convinces her to have Sarah run down the center aisle at the end of “The Sun” so Noah sings out to the audience and to Sarah directly, and Leslie grumbles that it’s a good idea and Ben boasts about that for a few days.

The show is the same, but it doesn’t feel entirely familiar. Things are changing just by the absence of Justin and Ben’s different tones, notes, and stride as he roams the stage. Leslie’s Sarah has changed, too. The acting is shifting, a bit more subtle, better, which surprises Ben. He didn’t think she could get any better.

It’s all a whirlwind. They sing Happy Birthday to Leslie right before she’s supposed to sing “I’m Not Interested” during a run through, and she cries and hugs everyone and they spend the rest of the night eating cupcakes. Leslie throws her wrapper at Ben and he chucks it back to her, mouthing, “Happy Birthday,” to her.

Justin shows up the day before tech week and the theater turns silent with his arrival. Leslie was laughing at Andy who was imitating her dance during “Tiny Treasures” and Ben was sitting on the edge of the stage, noting some lyric changes they were considering for the end of “Happy”. They were going to make a decision on it by tech week, it was up to Ben to prove something else would be better.

Then Justin walks in and everyone is quiet. Ben sees him first, then Andy, then April and Tom. Leslie is the last one, because when you work on a musical enough, life becomes incredibly theatrical.

Ben looks back at Leslie just as she spins and sees him, her body freezing. Ben stands, taking a step toward Justin. Andy does the same, hopping off the stage to stand next to Ben.

“Congratulations,” Justin says to Ben. Ben nods. “I think I left some things here, I want to get them if that’s okay.”

“What did you leave?” Andy asks.

“I saw some underwear full of shit by the dumpster, was that yours?” April snaps, crossing her arms.

“Guys,” Leslie says, voice tight, “relax.”

“Hi Leslie,” Justin says, and Ben wants to punch him in the face for even looking at her.

Leslie has been pretty tame when it comes to Justin, she even mentions him every now and then when Ben suggests changes or when he does something with Noah that isn’t like how Justin used to do it. She hardly seems heartbroken, but there is a flicker of something lost that passes across her face every now and then. Like when she sings certain parts of the finale or when she paces the stage, mumbling her to-do list to herself. When Ben offers to help her in any way he can and that he’s here to help and support her, she looks at him skeptically. She doesn’t say anything, neither accepting his offer or denying it. He finds it’s easier to just help her without her knowing and he’s been doing it since day one with notes in her script and locking the theater door at the end of the night.

Justin asks Leslie how the show is going and she says, “very well,” with a calm, even tone that is laced just enough with retribution. She even goes with him outside when he asks if he will join her. Ben tries to follow, but Leslie puts a hand on his chest.

“I’m fine,” she says, and Ben decides to believe her.

When she returns, she is fine. Refreshed, like she shed a weight she’d been holding and bathed in clean, clear waters.

The next day, Ben has a chance Monday off from The Little Bookstore. They don’t have rehearsal today, the four days of tech week starting tomorrow, but Ben goes to Lot 48, anyway. He’s humming “Possibilities” as he waits for a bagel and coffee. He finishes the coffee by the time he steps off the subway, munching on his bagel as a light snow starts dusting the streets. It feels nice on his face.

The door isn’t locked and the stage lights change from scene to scene, music cue to music cue. He tosses his garbage in the trash, walks up the aisle, and hops on stage, shielding his eyes as he looks up to the booth.

“Good morning,” Ben calls up to her.

“Good morning,” Leslie responds. “There’s coffee for you on Sarah’s suitcase.”

Ben smiles, the lights shutting off, leaving a lone spotlight on him. He can see the dust floating along the beam, a blonde head behind the spot. He thinks he can see the faint outline of her smile.

“I already had a coffee,” Ben says. “But lucky for you, I am addicted to caffeine. Thank you.”

“No problem.”

He doesn’t ask how she knew he would be coming, nor what compelled her to order him coffee. Instead, he walks around the stage and Leslie follows him with the spotlight, creating a game as he hops around, his new coffee in his hand. Ben hears her giggle and that new rise and flutter sensation in his stomach happens again. It’s been doing that lately. He’s trying to ignore it.

“Hey,” Leslie says, the spot steadying on him as he takes a sip of his coffee. “What's your dream role, Wyatt?”

“Bobby from Company,” Ben says and he hops a grape vine across the stage, Leslie following with the spotlight.

“Sondheim, huh?” Leslie says. “Not surprising.”

“I’m a classic man with classic tastes, you must know that by now.” He doesn’t see Leslie roll her eyes, but he knows she’s doing it. “We did West Side Story my senior year of high school. I was Riff, of course.”

“Well, if we’re going to brag about high school rolls, I was in many ensembles.”

“Really? That’s it?”

“There are no small parts, Benjamin, just small actors.”

“Huh.”

“I was in the ensemble of 42nd Street, though,” she says, her voice rising in its boast.

Ben raises his eyebrows. “And you don’t have tap in the show? Leslie you should tap.” Leslie laughs, saying no over and over again. “Tapping fits ‘Tiny Treasures’!”

“We open in a week, Ben, I’m not adding tap; and it doesn’t fit the show.”

Ben tilts his head. “This show is a hodgepodge of musical theater, how would tap not fit?”

Leslie moves the spotlight from side to side like it’s shaking its head no.

“Your next show, then,” Ben says. “You can even cast me in it. I can tap, too.”

“You’re lying!” Leslie yells, cackling.

“I can! It was on my resume.”

“I don’t believe people’s resumes. Mine is mostly made up. To tell you the truth, I didn’t even look at yours.”

Ben puts his hand over his chest, gasping dramatically. She laughs, apologizing, and Ben keeps dancing around the stage and she follows him. He taps in his sneakers and looks at her, smug. She congratulates him with a slow clap.

“What about you, Knope? Dream role?”

“Fanny Brice,” she says quickly.

“Get your ass down here and sing ‘Don’t Rain on My Parade’.”

“Sorry, saving it for when I’m cast on broadway.”

“Damn.”

Leslie turns off the spotlight and Ben blinks, adjusting to the darkness. She brings up some soft blue and red lights, casting a pretty purple glow across the stage. He hears her feet climb down the ladder from the booth. She joins him on stage, grabbing the coffee from his hand and taking a sip. Ben snatches it back from her as she grimaces, complaining about the lack of cream and sugar.

Ben looks her over. He’s sure she’s wearing the same thing he saw her in yesterday, those jeans with the rip in the right knee and her red NYU sweatshirt. The bags under her eyes are dark and full, her hair a wild mess. He reaches out and touches a crazed strand and she looks up at him, eyes glazed as she sways toward him. Even as she almost falls over from exhaustion right in front of him, she looks so pretty in this purple glow.

“Are you sleeping?” Ben asks.

She shakes her head.

“You’re too tired to even lie,” Ben says, laughing.

“I’m fine,” she says. “Come on, let’s be in a big musical number.”

She jumps on the balls of her feet and Ben let’s her take his hand. Leslie starts to hum and Ben listens, not recognizing the song until she starts singing, her voice dropping dramatically an octave.

“One day more... Another day, another destiny.”

Ben talks over her, “Les Miz? Really?”

“These men who seem to know my crime, will surely come a second time. One day more!”

Leslie gestures to Ben, so he has to sing.

“I did not live until today,” Ben sings, putting his arms out dramatically, “How can I live when we are parted?”

Leslie points into the air three times and then they both sing together.

“Tomorrow you’ll be worlds away, and yet with you, my world has started.”

Ben’s laughing and Leslie starts twirling across the stage, dramatically singing, each of them trying to share the lyrics equally but stumbling over each other anyway. They try to get every part even as they overlap and stomp to the front of the stage dramatically to belt the end, Ben lifting Leslie onto his shoulder right before they sing, “One day more!”

He puts her down and she sways again, both of them lost in ridiculous laughter and trying to regain their breathing.

“If you love Sondheim so much, we should put on a production of Assassins,” Leslie says, holding onto him, snuggling her head into his chest. She pushes him away, as if realizing what she’s doing. “If you want.”

“Uh, yeah, of course,” Ben says.

She nods. They stand around in the purple silence and Ben pulls the coffee from her reach when she tries to take another sip.

“No caffeine or sugar for you,” Ben says. “Go home and sleep.”

“I’m your director, sir.”

“And producer. I know. Please get some sleep, Leslie.”

She growls at him and shakes her head. Ben rolls his eyes and opens the storage closet upstage that holds their props. He pulls out a blanket and a stuffed pig and places them down onto the stage like a makeshift bed.

“If you want to live here, fine. But you’re going to sleep.” Ben gestures dramatically to the makeshift bed.

“You’re not my boss.”

Ben lays down on the stage and places his hands behind his head.

“This is so comfortable, wow, what a wonderful place to sleep, especially for producers slash actors slash directors who never go home.”

Leslie rolls her eyes and Ben watches her struggle to make a decision. She bends her knees and shakes her arms, trying to find a way out of this. Ben just stays flat on the stage, basking in the purple glow, watching her struggle to find peace with needing rest.

“Just sit down, we can sing songs from Wicked or some other show that you probably love.”

Leslie sits on top of the blanket, grabbing the stuffed pig and hugs it. “Wicked is good,” she says.

He laughs and starts singing “Popular”. Leslie cackles loudly, joining him at the chorus. They go through the show randomly and it isn’t long until Leslie’s laying back, using Ben’s arm as a pillow. Her eyes are closed as she sings, “For Good”. Ben doesn’t know the words so he listens to her breathy, tired voice.

She breathes deep between the lyrics, still falling out of her mouth in beautiful harmony, despite the fact that she’s falling asleep. Ben wonders if she sings in her sleep; it wouldn’t surprise him if she performed her entire show as she dreams every night. He watches her profile, soft and cute, move. He has the urge to kiss her nose and it frightens him so much, he almost stands up, but Leslie’s hand flops onto his chest and slides down into his hand on the floor. He’s frozen, warmth spreading through his hand, up into his arm, and expanding through his chest, into the rest of his body.

Ben’s fingers shakes as he rotates his hand just enough to slide his fingers between hers and wrap them around her hand. She stops singing, sighing, and tightens her fingers on his hand, too. She sings Noah’s part of the finale and he smiles, letting his own body relax as he watches her, listens. She’s quiet, finally, just breaths, and Ben’s arm becomes sore underneath his body, but he stays. He stays there, in the center of the stage, in a purple haze, and, despite the two coffees, falls asleep.

~

They open tomorrow.

Tech week was a blur, really, where Ben yelled at Leslie and Leslie yelled at Ben and everyone else. She also, somehow, had time to make everyone homemade cookies to apologize for the yelling.

It’s past midnight, now, so Ben mentions that they actually open today. Leslie doesn’t hear him the first time, her eyes in their little lost space they find themselves in from time to time. A full minute or two passes before she blinks and turns to him.

“What?”

“I said we actually open today, it’s past midnight.”

“Oh,” she says, giving him a fake smile. “Yeah.”

“Are you okay?” Ben asks.

Ben’s sitting in the front row as Leslie sits on top of Sarah’s suitcase, script open, eyes dazed. They’ve run the show so many times, he’s practically singing every song in his head, mouthing lines as he waits for coffee in the morning. He dreams of lighting changes and Leslie’s voice at night. There are more elaborate dance numbers now that Ben is Noah, but Ben is still disappointed he hasn’t gotten her to agree to adding tap.

“Next time,” he always says after he brings it up again.

She rolls her eyes and pushes his shoulder, her hand falling down his arm so their fingers playfully hold each other before they let go.

Ever since they fell asleep on the floor of the stage, there’s been more touching. He holds her closer when they waltz across the stage and he adds a lift and twirl at the end of “Tiny Treasures”. As the days drag on, Ben finds Leslie leaning into him as Orin adjusts the lights around them

Yesterday, Leslie told Ben he needed a haircut and dragged her fingers over the fallen hair along his forehead, pushing it back. He almost kissed her.

He’s supposed to kiss her. He’s supposed to kiss her three times in the show, but has yet to do so. Anytime they get to the point, Leslie yells, “Kiss!” and they continue. By the way Leslie’s eyes grow wide, and her head leans back, away from him, Ben hasn’t pressed it. It’s clear she would rather not kiss him unless she has to, and while Ben’s chest burns a little when she sidesteps him, he has to respect that.

She’s his director, after all.

“We should go home,” Ben says after another few minutes of silence. Lately, it’s felt like if he doesn’t tell her to go home, to sleep, to eat, she just won’t do it. The ironic thing is, she’ll tell him to eat every now and then, too, as if she hasn’t completely forgotten to do so herself. “I’ll walk you.”

Leslie sighs and nods, grabbing her things.

The January air bites at his face as they walk to the subway. Leslie pulls her hat down over her ears and wraps her arms around herself, but when they get to the station, she stops.

“Can we walk to the next one?”

Ben just nods and they continue walking.

She shakes and blows into her gloveless hands as Ben fights the urge to grab her icy fingers and warm them between his. He forgot gloves, too, but he could cup her hands in his and blow into them.

“I’m not sad Justin isn’t here,” Leslie says. A gust of wind flies past them and she burrows herself deeper into her coat. “Or part of this, whatever, but without him, things don’t feel like I thought they would.”

Ben lets that hang in the air between them. He’s not sure if it really warrants a response, but she looks at him when they turn and walk into a coffee shop. He follows her in, and she glances at a him again, so he rubs his hands and sighs.

“Well, it’s different,” Ben says, because that is not a very obvious thing to say at all. “But, I think no matter what, openings never feel the way you think they will.”

Leslie nods and walks up to the counter, asking for a mocha with extra whipped cream. Ben says, “Decaf,” and glances pointedly at Leslie. She pouts at him, sticking her cute little bottom lip out and rounding her eyes. She usually growls or sneers or something at him. The pouting is a fairly new phenomena. He enjoys it.

Ben orders himself a decaf coffee and they stand near the counter, waiting.

“You’re right, they don’t. I had a pretty perfect picture of how this show would go, the process, the opening, everything. But it’s all… different,” Leslie rubs her hands together, blowing in them, her eyes watching Ben from above her fingers. “Not bad,” she clarifies, her voice muffled beneath her hands.

“Me too,” Ben says, grabbing his coffee. Leslie wraps her fingers around her mocha and a satisfied smile overtakes her lips. Her eyes even close for a moment. “But I think we had pretty different expectations.”

Leslie nods, taking a sip and leading them back into the cold.

“Thanks,” Leslie says, holding up her mocha. Ben nods. “I like where it is now, I think… and okay, don’t get cocky now, turd boy, but I think it may even be better.”

Ben’s eyebrows shoot up, his face playfully breaking out in surprise. It’s a giant contrast to the heat storm that’s going on in his stomach.

“Oh, really?”

Leslie cackles and nudges him with her shoulder. “I said don’t get cocky.” They laugh and walk down into the subway station. “You’re just very good or whatever. Also, Justin and I didn’t feel like we were working for a while… in the show or...”

She trails off and Ben decides to ignore her last comment. The fact that she’s even talking about her relationship with Justin is a lot.

“Aw, Leslie,” Ben coos, nudging her back. “You’re very good or whatever, too.” They make their way to the platform and wait. “And, not that I would ever say this to your face, but I’m thankful you cast me as Justin’s understudy, and I’m thankful to be here. With you. All of it. This is going to be big.”

Leslie stares at him, her cheeks slowly turning the color of strawberries. Her smile is slow to form, but it eventually takes up her entire face, radiating a glow from her that seems to take over the entire subway.

“Maybe,” she whispers.

“Definitely.”

“Shh!” Leslie grabs his arm. “Don’t jinx it.”

Ben blinks, frozen. He just stares at her, takes in the little ball of energy, joy, and talent that is Leslie Knope. The subway station’s noise and motion go on around them, but he stays focused on her, her hand sliding down his arm, and her face full of happiness and superstitious panic. Their hands meet and Ben holds onto her cold fingers, rubbing them for warmth.

Leslie’s train shows up first and she blinks, squeezing his hand before it comes into the station.

“Goodbye, old girl,” Ben sings and Leslie rolls her eyes, backing up toward the stopping train. He has to sing loudly for her to hear him. “My old girl.”

“Goodbye, old friend,” Leslie yells back, her voice cracking. He laughs. “My old friend.”

She steps onto the train and they wave as it rolls out of the station.

~

He almost brings it up.

He arrives an hour early to call and helps Leslie do any last minute preparations. He watches her apply her makeup and the worry starts to build inside him.

The usual build up of nerves and excitement starts bubbling over his skin as everyone else arrives, as Orin runs through the lighting cues and Andy and Burley warm up. Leslie leads a round of vocal warm ups and reminds them of changes they made during tech week, even though they went smoothly during rehearsal.

Ben almost brings it up then, it would be the perfect time, but he doesn’t.

They still haven’t kissed and Ben is worried. He’s excited, his palms won’t stop sweating, and his fingers are shaking. The show? The show he’s known since the first week of rehearsal, Noah is stuck inside him, snug along his chest, and his words, lyrics live right at the base of his throat. He has the blocking, the costume changes, the new stage directions that include walking into the crowd. He’s ready for this show, he’s just worried he’s not ready to kiss Leslie.

Ben thinks he’s a good actor, but the line between Noah and Ben will blur the second his lips connect with hers. What that means, Ben’s not so sure.

There’s a storage closet that’s been converted into some sort of green room. They never use it because it really is storing quite a good amount of lights and props and other random items for the theater, but they have to use it now. April tells them house is open and they echo, “Thank you, house,” in the cramped space.

Ben sits on the floor and watches Leslie pace the impossibly small amount of floor to pace on. Tom and Jean Ralphio (Ben’s replacement) are looking at their phones, laughing at Vines, while Ann watches Leslie move, too. Ben rubs at the back of his neck. He could bring it up now, they could just do a small peck right here in the small storage closet.

He fights himself on it, he fights with himself as April calls 20 minutes, then 10, then 2. Leslie starts bouncing on her toes and Ann whispers to her that it’s going to be great, that she’s great. Leslie nods and takes deep (for her) breaths. Ben stands and stretches out his legs, his arms. There’s still time.

Maybe it’s all just an insane build up, maybe everything will be the same, maybe it will be nothing.

He shakes his head. It can’t be. You don’t kiss people you’re stupidly in love with for the first time in front of an audience when you’re trying to be a different character. That’s not how it works.

Ben takes the step to Leslie and grabs her arm.

“Leslie--”

“Places,” April calls to them and they all echo back, “Thank you places.”

Leslie looks up at Ben as the door shuts behind April.

“Yeah?”

Ben swallows and let’s her arm go.

“Break a leg.”

Leslie smiles at him and says, “You too,” before grabbing her suitcase and walking out of the small room to stand behind the flat that is painted to be her old bedroom.

Ben turns off the green room light and opens the door, watching Leslie mumble to herself behind the slat. The house lights go down and Ben hears the crowd clap and cheer. It feels full in the room, the bodies filling the space and the sounds of movement, coughing, and shuffling is rich as a soft light comes up for the overture.

Ben listens, follows the sweet, fast story of Possibilities through the music. When it ends, the lights dim again and when they come back up, she’s gone from behind the slat and he hears her plunk her suitcase down on her bed. She clears her throat and he hears the four steps she takes to take herself down center stage. He smiles with the sound of her first line.

“My name is Sarah Montice and I’m really something.”

There’s a shift in the crowd, a couple chuckles, and the start of “Possibilities” rings through the room from the keyboard and then Andy’s guitar comes in as she starts to sing.

Ben itches to see her, to watch her, but he can’t. The slats are in the way and he’s perfectly out of view from the audience. There’s no way to see the show from backstage and not be seen by the audience, and it never bothered Ben until now. He’s seen this show so much, but he knows Leslie can only be rejuvenated out there, glowing and strong, and he wants to see it.

He listens to her funny back and forth with Ann. Ann plays Leslie’s mom from back stage, using a shrill voice of unconcern that gets the crowd laughing with Leslie’s yells about leaving home. There’s a quip in there about how New York isn’t, “that expensive,” and the inside joke goes well for the New York audience. Ben’s cheeks hurt from smiling and he’s worried his Noah will be an unconvincing grump, but the worry quickly leaves when Leslie reaches the middle of “Excuse Me, I’m Sorry” and Ben needs to be on stage.

“Hey, watch it,” Ben says, running into Leslie. She backs up and looks at him, her face scrunching like it used to whenever he so much as walked into a room. The lights are hot on him and Leslie’s cheeks are flushed and the dress she’s wearing, the new one April picked out and altered, is stunning on her. “Oh, I’m sorry, excuse me.”

She pulls her suitcase back and studies him. “I’m sorry, excuse me, but do you know the way to the New World Hotel?”

“Why yes, I do know where that is,” he says and takes the step toward her, plucking the suitcase out of her hand. “It’s just this way.”

They walk through New York, April sliding slats as they go through different parts of the city and Sarah and Noah apologize and excuse themselves over and over. He ends the number center stage, sitting on the edge, Sarah’s forgotten scarf in his hand.

The lights go out and the audience cheers and Ben has to scramble backstage for the next scene, his heart is on fire.

Ben changes while Leslie walks through Central Park on stage. He meets her out there and they sing “Clouds and the Possibility of Rain” in New York during the fall. He can’t help but notice things he somehow had never seen before. Like how she twirls before the first chorus or how she rolls her eyes during the stanza about Noah’s broken heart. When the music stops and everyone gasps after Noah’s, “I don’t really like Christmas,” line, the audience laughs and the rush is so euphoric, Ben forgets to act sullen for a moment. Leslie hits his cheek a little too hard with the next chorus and he remembers again. It’s hard, being this energized next to her.

The show keeps going with only one prop malfunction to speak of. It’s fine, hardly a significant problem, anyway. Ben assists a set change even though he doesn't necessarily have to anymore. It’s symbolic, like a gesture of time before he got this new, incredible role.

Maybe he is just as romantic as Noah.

Ben walks around the stage, twirling and jumping off set pieces and waltzing along with Leslie as he sings “The Sun”. His heart is exploding and when he watches her walk out into the audience for his last refrain, he doesn’t miss how happy she looks as he sings to her. Her eyes are big and blue and bright, even in the shadow of the house. She puts her hands over her chest, on top of her heart, and that’s the last image he sees, perfect, stunning, talented, powerhouse Leslie Knope, before the blackout.

He rushes backstage as the music for the reprise of “I’m Considering It” begins. There’s a soft set change, Tom in costume, putting things together for a nameless spot in New York City. He sits down at an outside table of a cafe. Jean Ralphio joins him and Ben sprints out and sings, “I’ve considered it!” to them.

They stare at him blankly and it gets him the laugh. He sings and skips as a bar of music from “Tiny Treasures” blends in and Sarah enters stage right, just like she always does, and Ben’s heart is sure it’s stopped beating.

Be Noah, he tells himself, be Noah, be Noah, be Noah.

She sings, “I’ve found something, a little something, it’s not much but it surely is something.”

He rushes up to her and sings back, “I’m considering it, all of it, every ounce of it.”

There’s a flicker of panic in her eyes that he could never miss. Her gaze darts to his lips and back up to his eyes. He does the same exchange to her face as he sings that he’s considered love again and that it doesn’t seem so scary.

“Okay, no, it’s scary,” Ben sings, pushing Leslie’s hair behind her ear. This isn’t the blocking. “But I’ll be scared if it just means one thing.” He lines her jaw with his thumb as his hand rests on the side of her neck. This is definitely not part of the fucking blocking. “If I can be with you.”

Leslie licks her lips and Ben’s hands slide up to hold her face. He feels her throat tighten, sees her mouth part. The blood in his veins runs hot, his heart hammering in his ears so loud that it almost blocks out the music. The lights dim around them just like they always do and it’s just one single spotlight, illuminating half of Leslie’s face so dramatically. So beautifully.

He’s holding her face so long, examining the bright blue of her eyes, the dust of freckles on her cheeks, the pink pout of her lips. He’s buzzing and foggy and there’s no way anyone could miss the tremble in his fingers in her hair.

Leslie pushes up on her tiptoes, and Ben leans down, their lips meeting in the middle.

The spotlight is hot, but it’s nothing to the searing warmth and life that etches against his lips. He’s frozen for a second, two, and then he steps forward and pulls her closer by the back of her neck. They should be counting the seconds, but they are endless, and Leslie smiles against him right before she slides her tongue along his lips, opening his mouth. He welcomes her, devours her, breathes in every ounce of her.

Her arms snake up his chest and around his neck and she jumps, wrapping her legs around his waist. Ben stumbles and they giggle, but he doesn’t let her fall, just kisses her harder. He remembers all those times he almost kissed her, but he was wrong. This is when he is supposed to kiss her, right now, in a room full of strangers as they watch something build from the ground up with just as much passion and joy as the woman he holds in his arms contains in her tiny body.

This night is historic and he wouldn’t want to let it pass him by because of his impatience.

Finally, they hear the start to the last bar and Ben has to pull away, has to let her body slide down his. She’s smiling, cheeks flushed, lips swollen. He steals one more kiss before she pushes him away and he grabs her hands, holding them tightly as they sing together.

“I’ve found something, a little something, a worth living kind of something.” Their voices are hoarse and shaken, but they can’t stop smiling. “In you.”

They hold hands and run off stage, the crowd applauding, yelling, whistling as they fall back behind the slats. Ben grabs her and kisses her again, pulling away quickly, but Leslie pulls him in for one more kiss.

“Ben,” she whispers, “I--”

“I know, I know,” Ben whispers against her lips.

She pushes him away and he whispers for her to go. She runs back onstage for “Happiness” and Ben is thankful he has a full song to recover.

Doing bows with an actual audience to applaud is weird, and when Ben steps forward and Leslie gestures to him as the crowd cheers, his heart is surely going to explode. It doesn’t, but right after, when he motions to Leslie as she bows and the crowd erupts, it does.

After, he watches her mingle. There are people who approach him, too, but it’s nothing compared to her. She exchanges numbers with two people, and others are handing her business cards. Her mother is there with flowers and Ben blushes when she shakes his hand.

Andy and Burley pat Ben on the back and Tom shakes his hand. He also receives a couple business cards and chats with Jen who says, “Nice job practically fucking on stage,” before leaving.

They all agree to go to a diner a couple blocks away and Ben helps April put away props before everyone demands they stop working for once and Ben and Leslie share a glance across the stage.

Everyone files out of the theater and walks down the street, loud and excited with their pride and fatigue. The show runs again tomorrow, but there’s nothing quite like the energy of opening night, even during the wind down.

Leslie slides to the back of the small crowd and walks next to Ben. She looks up at him and he down at her and they share a private smile that turns into soft giggles. He nudges her.

“I’m sorry I messed up the blocking, Miss Director.”

“Oh, I guess I’ll forgive you,” Leslie says, nudging him back. Ben wraps an arm around her shoulders and pulls her into his side and she leans into him, placing her arm around his waist. “But don’t do it again.”

“Oh, I don’t know, I think we should consider the full two minute make out session during the ‘I’m Considering It’ reprise.”

Leslie groans, smacking her palm into her face.

“It was two minutes?”

“More like five!” Andy yells. He thrusts his hips. “It was awesome.”

“Oh no,” Leslie moans and Ben pulls her closer to him, their feet tripping over each other as he kisses her head.

They eat and congratulate each other. Leslie gives a speech about each and every cast and crew member, standing and crying in the middle of the restaurant. She sits next to Ben after that, their hands secure in each other’s grip and his lips have a hard time staying off of her cheeks, her neck, her hair.

Ben gets them a cab, saying he’ll split it, but he intends to pay the entire fare. She is in his lap the whole ride and when they get to his place, he pulls her out onto the sidewalk, thanking the driver.

“This isn’t my house,” Leslie says.

“I know,” Ben says, kissing her. “But there’s a bed here and everything.”

Leslie hums and unbuttons the top button of his jacket and pulls on the collar of his shirt so she can slide her tongue and lips along his collarbone. Ben gasps, pushing his hands into her hair.

“But, I don’t have any pajamas,” she says, biting his skin.

Ben hisses, his voice hoarse and low as he says, “We’ll manage.”

He pulls her away, her face in his hands as he rubs their noses together, a multitude of lyrics running through his head, but none of them able to stick, nothing sliding along his vocal chords and dancing along his lips as he kisses her.

Instead, the sounds of the city act like their new melody, something that’s completely theirs, not Sarah’s or Noah’s, but simply Leslie and Ben’s.