Fic: Witness Protection, part 1/?
No new Parks, tonight, so I'm putting forth my own humble offering, instead.
Title: Witness Protection, part 1/?
Fandom: Parks and Recreation
Characters/Ships: Ben/Leslie, Chris/Ann, Andy/April, Ben/Pawnee, ensemble
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~3,800
Summary: When corporate whistleblowers Ben Adams and Chris Robinson barely escape an attempt on their lives, they gladly accept the protection of the Federal Witness Protection program. What they don't count on is being sent to a city that feels more like something out of a movie or a sitcom than real life: Pawnee Indiana. An AU starting in "Master Plan."
Author's Notes: I'm not quite sure where this one came from. Most of my AU stories in the past have just explored "what-ifs" without straying too far from canon. This is pretty far from that. I think it officially counts as my first "high-concept" AU. I'm pretty sure I know where it's going, but I'm not sure how long it will take to get there. Basically, it's a very serious, intense story for Ben getting mashed up with the zany Pawnee we know and love from the show. I hope I can make it work. *fingers crossed*
After stepping out of the town car to the sidewalk in front of the courthouse, Ben Adams hunched his shoulders and lowered his head, trying to make himself as small as possible. His eyes darted around the crowd of reporters and protesters. Any one of them could be packing a gun. He lurched a little closer to his bodyguard, and wondered if, next time, they would let him wear a Kevlar vest under his suit.
He glanced back to the car to see Chris Robinson stepping out, and rolled his eyes. The man stood as tall as ever, smiling and waving for the cameras. Ben had always liked Chris, but lately he'd been wearing on his nerves. It was like he didn't get just how deep the shit they were in really was. This wasn't a goddamn movie premiere-they were about to testify against George Everson, the CEO of one of the most powerful pharmaceutical companies in America. A man who literally commanded his own army of security personnel. A man who hadn't thought twice about condemning kids with cancer to die in order to increase his own profit margins.
A man who wouldn't hesitate to have the "pansy ass whistleblowers" killed before they had a chance to bring him down.
Ben continued to hunch behind the bodyguard as they made their way up the courthouse steps. He ignored the clicking cameras and shouted questions all around him and focused on the only two things that represented safety: the solid, black-jacketed back of his bodyguard, and the courthouse doors up ahead.
The inside of the courthouse would still be terrifying, but in more of a "we'd better win this case or I'm a dead man" kind of way, rather than the current "I'd better get out of the open and away from people or I'm a dead man" kind of way. And this was just a pre-trial hearing. There were months more of constant fear still ahead of him.
Naturally, Ben would have preferred to return to his calm, simple, normal life as an internal auditor. But he'd given up any shot at normal when he turned informant for the FBI. No-normal simply wasn't an option any more. He'd made this bed. Now he had to learn to sleep in it.
Ben reached the top of the stairs, where the prosecuting attorney waited to greet him. The man, as always, wore a suit that looked like it cost more than Ben's car. His haircut probably cost more than Ben's suit. And his watch-well, his watch would have paid off Ben's student loans.
The attorney shot Ben a grin with sparkling white teeth, and patted him on the back. "Don't look so worried, man. You're going to do just fine."
Ben nodded and gulped. Sure. Just fine.
The attorney turned away toward the crowd and his eyes suddenly went wide. He clutched at his chest, toppling backward.
Ben had no time to process the sight. His bodyguard flung him to the ground-hard-and then jumped on top of him.
Screams filled the air as Ben struggled for breath, the wind knocked out of him. His eyes darted to where the attorney lay, just a few feet away.
The man's eyes stood open-empty and unblinking. A red stain spread across his pin-striped shirt.
Oh fuck.
A moment later the bodyguard rolled off of Ben, yanked him to his feet and shoved him through the courtroom doors. A gang of security guards and police officers surrounded him and hustled him back to an anonymous conference room.
Ben collapsed into a chair, still gasping for breath, barely comprehending the words the police officers were shouting at each other. Only one word stood out: sniper.
A second gang ushered Chris into the room. For once, he looked flustered and completely out of his element. It was almost enough to cheer Ben up. Almost.
Chris sank into a chair next to Ben.
"Are you all right?" Ben managed to choke out.
Chris nodded, a dazed look in his eyes. Then his gaze drifted to Ben's shoulder. Without a word, he pointed.
Ben craned his neck, and saw what looked like frayed fabric on the shoulder of his suit-coat. Wait a minute-was that a bullet hole?
"Holy shit!" He leaped to his feet, pulling of his jacket. "Am I hit? Am I hit?" He'd feel something if he was hit, wouldn't he? Or could shock mask that kind of pain?
Two cops rushed over to him as he dropped his coat to the floor. The sleeve of his shirt was ripped and blood stained. Ben finally registered the feeling of blood running down his arm. He wobbled on his feet, feeling faint. Had the bullet nicked an artery? Was he going to bleed out right here in the conference room?
One of the cops took his uninjured arm, holding him up before he had a chance to collapse.
"Get a paramedic in here! The witness is wounded!" shouted a grizzled-looking old cop, before ripping the fabric of Ben's shirt away from the wound. A straight, deep abrasion stood stark and red on Ben's shoulder, leaking blood at a slow but steady pace.
The grizzled cop nodded. "Just a graze. You'll live. You got lucky, son."
Ben gulped. The so-called graze looked pretty damn bad to him. But then the image of the empty-eyed attorney lying unmoving on the stairs filled his mind. That could have been Ben. "Yeah. Lucky."
Chris moved to stand beside him, staring at the bloody wound on Ben's shoulder.
He looked up to meet Ben's eyes. "Ben-someone literally just tried to kill us."
For the first time since they'd decided to go to the FBI together, Chris actually looked scared.
That terrified the shit out of Ben more than anything else that had happened to them.
A couple of paramedics rushed into the conference room, and as they started treating his wound, all Ben could think was: What do we do now?
Three Weeks Later
"Hey, Wyatt!"
It took Ben a moment to perk up and turn around from where he stood by the coffee pot in the kitchen of the condo he now shared with Chris.
Marshal Ryan Lewis, a round-faced, balding man, rolled his eyes from where he sat on the sofa. Marshal Tonya Burdette, a slim brunette perched on the arm of the couch beside Lewis, called, "You'll have to be faster than that. Remember, Ben Wyatt is your name, now. Respond to it. Make it yours. This is your identity. You have to own it."
Ben smiled grimly and nodded. "Yeah. Got it. Want some coffee?" He could probably drink the whole pot himself. Anything to clear the fog of anxiety from his mind. But his mother taught him manners, and, like his old name, those weren't something he'd easily forget.
Both marshals asked for coffee-Lewis taking sugar and cream, Burdette asking for black.
Just as Ben handed them both their mugs, Chris bounded down the stairs, humming. A bright smile lit up his face when he saw the marshals in the living room.
"Marshal Lewis! Marshal Burdette!" he said, pointing at each of them in turn. "I'm so pleased you came to see us off to our first day of work." They both grinned and waved back. Like nearly everyone, they'd taken to Chris the moment they met him.
Ben gritted his teeth. He'd lectured Chris, repeatedly, on the fact that they weren't in town to make friends. They were here to play it safe, fly under the radar, and keep their heads down for the next six months until it was time to come out of hiding and testify. Somehow, the lectures still hadn't sunk in.
"Are you two all set to go?" asked Lewis. "You remember all the names, places, and details?"
Ben swallowed a gulp of his own coffee and nodded. "We've been drilling everything for the past week. I think we've got it by now."
He dreaded heading to his new job, but he needed to be strong. Sure, getting back into government work was bound to bring up some unpleasant memories-flashbacks to days better forgotten. But it really would be a good place to lie low.
Pawnee, Indiana was sure to be the last place George Everson and his goons would ever come looking.
***
Leslie cradled her hefty copy of the Master Plan in her arms like a baby-a glorious, bureaucrat-ese filled baby, livened up with a healthy dose of Jack London quotes. She strode toward the meeting room with her head held high, Ron lumbering along beside her. Between her meticulous planning and Ron's ability to cow other department heads into submission, she knew that today would be her day. Fifteen long months of work as the head of her own sub-committee were about to pay off.
Today, she'd finally get her park.
She paused just inside the door of the meeting room, putting a hand on Ron's chest to stop him.
"What?" he grumbled.
"Can't you just feel it?" she said, closing her eyes and inhaling. "I can even smell it. The excitement. The electricity in the air. This is my day, Ron. It's finally coming together."
Ron gave her a long stare-the kind she'd come to recognize as bemused skepticism. "I'm hitting the refreshment table," he finally said.
She rolled her eyes and let him go, finding seats near the front. Let Ron be a skeptic all he wanted. She was believer enough for both of them.
After a few minutes the room finished filling up, and Paul took his place at the front of the room. Two strange men followed him, taking seats behind the podium. Leslie frowned. She hoped that whoever they were, they wouldn't do anything to disrupt the budget meeting. She wouldn't tolerate anything ruining this big day for her. Although they were both pretty good-looking. One was all smiles as he looked over the gathering like he was trying to memorize each face. The other one looked uncomfortable in front of the crowd, and stared down at his feet. He wasn't as attractive as his grinning companion, but his hair looked nice and Leslie really liked his shirt.
Leslie shook her head. Now was hardly the time to be ogling strange men. Yes, it had been a few months since she dumped Justin, and she was starting to feel the itch to get back out there again. But today there were other priorities. Like getting her park.
Paul raised his voice. "Good morning everybody. Now, I know you all have your budget presentations ready, but there's been a change of plans."
Leslie's eyes went wide. Wait-what did he just say?
"Due to the crippling gridlock in city council," Paul continued, "we are postponing all planning and spending decisions indefinitely."
"Until when?" asked Leslie.
"Indefinitely," Paul repeated.
No, no, no. "And when will that end?"
"Later then now."
Oh god. "So this week, probably?" Today, damn it. She was supposed to get her park today.
"Look," said Paul, coming around the front of the podium to sit on the table. "We are bordering on a full blown crisis, Leslie, and the state government is threatening us with an audit unless we get our budget under control. So I've hired two new budget consultants to come in with fresh eyes to help us reorganize and pare down."
Leslie could feel her blood start to boil at the words "pare down."
Cities in crisis mode did not build new parks. Cities that were paring down did not build new parks.
This was her project-her triumph. The success that was going to elevate her career to the next level.
And now they were paring down?
"I'd like to introduce Chris Traeger and Ben Wyatt," said Paul, gesturing to the two men seated behind him. "They started reviewing all your budgets yesterday, and for the rest of the day they'll be coming around to each of your departments to introduce themselves and to start getting your perspective on our budget dilemmas. I expect you all to cooperate with them to the fullest extent. From now on, they are the word of god as far as your budgets are concerned."
The smiling man waved brightly, the other just raised his eyes to the crowd and nodded his head.
Leslie hated them. Why had she ever thought they were attractive? They were terrible. They were destroyers of dreams and killers of parks. If things were really as bad as Paul suggested, then it wasn't just her park at stake-it was her whole department. She had to fight them, and she had to win.
***
Chris was having a fabulous day. He strode through the corridors of Pawnee city hall, waving at all his new acquaintances. Such a lovely-if somewhat overweight-group of people. So far he loved being Chris Traeger. He particularly liked the name Traeger-the way it danced off his tongue. But the rest of the experience so far had been wonderful, too.
Chris had lived his whole life in large metropolises, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Denver, and even Indianapolis. (That had been one of the deciding factors in sending them to Indiana. Chris remembered the area well enough to sound like a native.) Pawnee was his first taste of small-town life, and so far it was proving to be utterly delightful.
He glanced over at Ben, who looked worn out and wilting though it was still early afternoon. Chris understood perfectly well why Ben still felt a little traumatized by his near-miss at the courthouse, but he would have thought Ben would be perking up by now. After all, they were safe under the umbrella of the Federal Witness Protection program. No one would find them here. And Ben grew up in a small town-Pawnee ought to feel like coming home for him. Instead, he seemed even more unsettled than he had in their two months of being shuffled under guard from hotel to hotel before the disastrous (nearly fatal) pre-trial hearing.
Well, if there was one thing that Chris had learned after three years of having Ben as his boss, it was that nothing made Ben calmer or more focused than work. Time to put that knowledge to good use.
"Next up is the Parks Department," Chris said. "I suggest that after the initial meet-and-greet, I return to the Public Health department to start going over their spreadsheets with them, and you can stay in Parks to do the same." Some good old-fashioned number crunching would be just the thing to settle Ben down.
"Sounds fine," replied Ben.
Chris nodded and led the way into the Parks Department. He greeted the waiting bureaucrats brightly, committing their names to memory. His memory skills had served him well over the years, and it was best to keep up his mental exercises here in Pawnee, even though his stay wouldn't be long.
He recognized Leslie Knope as the enthusiastic blonde from the department head meeting that morning. She was moderately pretty-not really Chris's type-but she also demonstrated a great deal of passion for her work, even inviting them on a tour of her department. People who felt passionately about their vocations were literally the best people on earth to work with.
Chris envied Ben for getting the chance to stay and work with her more closely. The people in Public Health didn't look half so interesting.
Oh well. There'd be plenty of other chances.
Chris headed back toward Public Health with a bounce in his step. Surely an hour examining facts and figures with Parks would leave Ben in a far better mood. His mood certainly couldn't get any worse.
***
Ben looked at the ceiling all through the "broken carousel" speech which Chris had spent the morning perfecting. Yesterday, just sitting in an office going over numbers, hadn't been too bad. But today, meeting with the mayor and visiting all the city departments all day, felt like a nightmare. It was Partridge all over again, only on steroids. Twice as big, but just as financially screwed. His only consolation was that this time the budget woes weren't his fault. In fact, he might actually be able to help fix them. Not that he was naïve enough to think that helping Pawnee would in any way redeem him for what happened in Partridge.
Ben had learned long ago that you could never really make up for past mistakes. The best you could hope for was to avoid making the same mistakes a second time.
Chris then insisted on letting the perky Deputy Director of Parks take them on a tour of her miniscule department. Ben recognized her from the department head meeting as the one who'd seemed most devastated at the news that no new spending would be approved. Ben knew her type-obnoxious, small-minded people puffed up with an inflated opinion of their own importance, convinced that their projects deserved more consideration than anyone else's. He'd met the same type during his disastrous flirtation with government back in Partridge, and he'd met them over and over again during his years in the private sector. He wished he could trade Chris and take Public Health instead of Parks. Anything to avoid being cooped up with Leslie Knope.
Grudgingly he joined Ms. Knope and Mr. Swanson in the Parks Department conference room to start going over their budget. As he arranged his materials on the table in front of them, Ms. Knope spoke up, "I really like your shirt."
Ugh. Time to stop the ass kissing before it really got going. "So, I'd like to talk about where you think there's waste in your department."
Ben watched in puzzlement as Ms. Knope adamantly defended the expenditures of her department and its personnel, while Mr. Swanson laughed and joked about his eagerness to see everything slashed to the bone. Who was really in charge here? And how in the world did these two people manage to work together on a daily basis?
"Well, Chris said you just had to tinker with things," said Leslie, defensively, when Ben told her just how deep the cuts would need to be.
For some reason, her passion for her department irked him. This was more than just the natural defensiveness people in her position normally showed. This was something deeper, and it unsettled him. "Yeah, he said that because that sounds a lot better then we're going to gut it with a machete." He knew the words were too harsh the moment he said them, but it had already been a long day.
Mr. Swanson laughed gleefully, making stabbing gestures with his hands, but Ms. Knope fixed Ben with an icy glare. "You're a jerk."
That one caught him off guard. Ass kissing, he understood. Defensiveness, he understood. But outright hostility? What purpose could that possibly serve for her, other than to put her own job on the chopping block? "I'm sorry?"
"I'm sorry-these are real people, in a real town, working in a real building, with real feelings."
What? "This building has feelings?" He knew he sounded like a jerk, only reinforcing her current opinion of him, but he half expected her to catch the sarcastic tone of his joke and respond in kind.
Instead, she responded with sincerity. "Maybe. There's a lot of history in this one. Maybe it does. How can you be so blasé about this?"
At that moment he realized why she unsettled him so much-she reminded him of the misguided young man who'd stood before the entire city government of Partridge, Minnesota, arguing passionately for the continued viability of a winter sports complex long after it was clear that the project was doomed. Yet she was a woman in her thirties, with an entire career in government to teach her the same kind of cynicism and self-interest that most of the other bureaucrats he'd ever met possessed. Why hadn't she fallen into that trap? How had she held onto that youthful passion? And how the hell could he work with someone so blind?
"Because I didn't cause these problems, Ms. Knope. Your government did." He injected perhaps a little too much venom into those final words. But after the dismal failure of government security at the courthouse in Atlanta, he didn't think too highly of any government right now-particularly not a muddled and mixed up small-town bureaucracy. He couldn't deal with this right now.
He rose to his feet, packing up his paperwork. "I'll get what I need from the spreadsheets." He left the Parks department without another word, and stalked back to his new office. He dropped his stack of papers on his table. God. He didn't know how he'd get through six months of this.
He sank to a chair, and rubbed self-consciously at the still-tender wound on his shoulder. He closed his eyes, and sighed. He'd been too hard on Ms. Knope, and he knew it. Just because he was putting his own life on the line to bring down a corporate tyrant didn't mean that he should start dismissing everyone else's concerns and priorities as unimportant. He knew that. He'd spent most of his own adult life consumed with the same kind of trivial concerns. It would be nice to live in that kind of world again-where his decisions and recommendations didn't tip the balance between life and death, justice and injustice.
Really, he ought to follow Chris's example and let himself relax for the next few months. Let himself forget his troubles in the simple worries of small-town government. It might help him forget his fears. Maybe he'd stop jumping out of his skin at every loud noise or creaking floorboard in the night.
He probably owned Ms. Knope an apology.
It was with that thought still in his mind that he heard Chris suggesting they go to the 21st birthday party for the dark-haired young woman who worked in the Parks department.
"It's the first social invitation we've received here in the great city of Pawnee," said Chris, "and I think we should make the most of it."
Ben wondered if Ms. Knope would be there. Probably-the party was for one of her colleagues, after all. He shrugged. "Sure. Why not?"
Part 2
Title: Witness Protection, part 1/?
Fandom: Parks and Recreation
Characters/Ships: Ben/Leslie, Chris/Ann, Andy/April, Ben/Pawnee, ensemble
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~3,800
Summary: When corporate whistleblowers Ben Adams and Chris Robinson barely escape an attempt on their lives, they gladly accept the protection of the Federal Witness Protection program. What they don't count on is being sent to a city that feels more like something out of a movie or a sitcom than real life: Pawnee Indiana. An AU starting in "Master Plan."
Author's Notes: I'm not quite sure where this one came from. Most of my AU stories in the past have just explored "what-ifs" without straying too far from canon. This is pretty far from that. I think it officially counts as my first "high-concept" AU. I'm pretty sure I know where it's going, but I'm not sure how long it will take to get there. Basically, it's a very serious, intense story for Ben getting mashed up with the zany Pawnee we know and love from the show. I hope I can make it work. *fingers crossed*
After stepping out of the town car to the sidewalk in front of the courthouse, Ben Adams hunched his shoulders and lowered his head, trying to make himself as small as possible. His eyes darted around the crowd of reporters and protesters. Any one of them could be packing a gun. He lurched a little closer to his bodyguard, and wondered if, next time, they would let him wear a Kevlar vest under his suit.
He glanced back to the car to see Chris Robinson stepping out, and rolled his eyes. The man stood as tall as ever, smiling and waving for the cameras. Ben had always liked Chris, but lately he'd been wearing on his nerves. It was like he didn't get just how deep the shit they were in really was. This wasn't a goddamn movie premiere-they were about to testify against George Everson, the CEO of one of the most powerful pharmaceutical companies in America. A man who literally commanded his own army of security personnel. A man who hadn't thought twice about condemning kids with cancer to die in order to increase his own profit margins.
A man who wouldn't hesitate to have the "pansy ass whistleblowers" killed before they had a chance to bring him down.
Ben continued to hunch behind the bodyguard as they made their way up the courthouse steps. He ignored the clicking cameras and shouted questions all around him and focused on the only two things that represented safety: the solid, black-jacketed back of his bodyguard, and the courthouse doors up ahead.
The inside of the courthouse would still be terrifying, but in more of a "we'd better win this case or I'm a dead man" kind of way, rather than the current "I'd better get out of the open and away from people or I'm a dead man" kind of way. And this was just a pre-trial hearing. There were months more of constant fear still ahead of him.
Naturally, Ben would have preferred to return to his calm, simple, normal life as an internal auditor. But he'd given up any shot at normal when he turned informant for the FBI. No-normal simply wasn't an option any more. He'd made this bed. Now he had to learn to sleep in it.
Ben reached the top of the stairs, where the prosecuting attorney waited to greet him. The man, as always, wore a suit that looked like it cost more than Ben's car. His haircut probably cost more than Ben's suit. And his watch-well, his watch would have paid off Ben's student loans.
The attorney shot Ben a grin with sparkling white teeth, and patted him on the back. "Don't look so worried, man. You're going to do just fine."
Ben nodded and gulped. Sure. Just fine.
The attorney turned away toward the crowd and his eyes suddenly went wide. He clutched at his chest, toppling backward.
Ben had no time to process the sight. His bodyguard flung him to the ground-hard-and then jumped on top of him.
Screams filled the air as Ben struggled for breath, the wind knocked out of him. His eyes darted to where the attorney lay, just a few feet away.
The man's eyes stood open-empty and unblinking. A red stain spread across his pin-striped shirt.
Oh fuck.
A moment later the bodyguard rolled off of Ben, yanked him to his feet and shoved him through the courtroom doors. A gang of security guards and police officers surrounded him and hustled him back to an anonymous conference room.
Ben collapsed into a chair, still gasping for breath, barely comprehending the words the police officers were shouting at each other. Only one word stood out: sniper.
A second gang ushered Chris into the room. For once, he looked flustered and completely out of his element. It was almost enough to cheer Ben up. Almost.
Chris sank into a chair next to Ben.
"Are you all right?" Ben managed to choke out.
Chris nodded, a dazed look in his eyes. Then his gaze drifted to Ben's shoulder. Without a word, he pointed.
Ben craned his neck, and saw what looked like frayed fabric on the shoulder of his suit-coat. Wait a minute-was that a bullet hole?
"Holy shit!" He leaped to his feet, pulling of his jacket. "Am I hit? Am I hit?" He'd feel something if he was hit, wouldn't he? Or could shock mask that kind of pain?
Two cops rushed over to him as he dropped his coat to the floor. The sleeve of his shirt was ripped and blood stained. Ben finally registered the feeling of blood running down his arm. He wobbled on his feet, feeling faint. Had the bullet nicked an artery? Was he going to bleed out right here in the conference room?
One of the cops took his uninjured arm, holding him up before he had a chance to collapse.
"Get a paramedic in here! The witness is wounded!" shouted a grizzled-looking old cop, before ripping the fabric of Ben's shirt away from the wound. A straight, deep abrasion stood stark and red on Ben's shoulder, leaking blood at a slow but steady pace.
The grizzled cop nodded. "Just a graze. You'll live. You got lucky, son."
Ben gulped. The so-called graze looked pretty damn bad to him. But then the image of the empty-eyed attorney lying unmoving on the stairs filled his mind. That could have been Ben. "Yeah. Lucky."
Chris moved to stand beside him, staring at the bloody wound on Ben's shoulder.
He looked up to meet Ben's eyes. "Ben-someone literally just tried to kill us."
For the first time since they'd decided to go to the FBI together, Chris actually looked scared.
That terrified the shit out of Ben more than anything else that had happened to them.
A couple of paramedics rushed into the conference room, and as they started treating his wound, all Ben could think was: What do we do now?
Three Weeks Later
"Hey, Wyatt!"
It took Ben a moment to perk up and turn around from where he stood by the coffee pot in the kitchen of the condo he now shared with Chris.
Marshal Ryan Lewis, a round-faced, balding man, rolled his eyes from where he sat on the sofa. Marshal Tonya Burdette, a slim brunette perched on the arm of the couch beside Lewis, called, "You'll have to be faster than that. Remember, Ben Wyatt is your name, now. Respond to it. Make it yours. This is your identity. You have to own it."
Ben smiled grimly and nodded. "Yeah. Got it. Want some coffee?" He could probably drink the whole pot himself. Anything to clear the fog of anxiety from his mind. But his mother taught him manners, and, like his old name, those weren't something he'd easily forget.
Both marshals asked for coffee-Lewis taking sugar and cream, Burdette asking for black.
Just as Ben handed them both their mugs, Chris bounded down the stairs, humming. A bright smile lit up his face when he saw the marshals in the living room.
"Marshal Lewis! Marshal Burdette!" he said, pointing at each of them in turn. "I'm so pleased you came to see us off to our first day of work." They both grinned and waved back. Like nearly everyone, they'd taken to Chris the moment they met him.
Ben gritted his teeth. He'd lectured Chris, repeatedly, on the fact that they weren't in town to make friends. They were here to play it safe, fly under the radar, and keep their heads down for the next six months until it was time to come out of hiding and testify. Somehow, the lectures still hadn't sunk in.
"Are you two all set to go?" asked Lewis. "You remember all the names, places, and details?"
Ben swallowed a gulp of his own coffee and nodded. "We've been drilling everything for the past week. I think we've got it by now."
He dreaded heading to his new job, but he needed to be strong. Sure, getting back into government work was bound to bring up some unpleasant memories-flashbacks to days better forgotten. But it really would be a good place to lie low.
Pawnee, Indiana was sure to be the last place George Everson and his goons would ever come looking.
***
Leslie cradled her hefty copy of the Master Plan in her arms like a baby-a glorious, bureaucrat-ese filled baby, livened up with a healthy dose of Jack London quotes. She strode toward the meeting room with her head held high, Ron lumbering along beside her. Between her meticulous planning and Ron's ability to cow other department heads into submission, she knew that today would be her day. Fifteen long months of work as the head of her own sub-committee were about to pay off.
Today, she'd finally get her park.
She paused just inside the door of the meeting room, putting a hand on Ron's chest to stop him.
"What?" he grumbled.
"Can't you just feel it?" she said, closing her eyes and inhaling. "I can even smell it. The excitement. The electricity in the air. This is my day, Ron. It's finally coming together."
Ron gave her a long stare-the kind she'd come to recognize as bemused skepticism. "I'm hitting the refreshment table," he finally said.
She rolled her eyes and let him go, finding seats near the front. Let Ron be a skeptic all he wanted. She was believer enough for both of them.
After a few minutes the room finished filling up, and Paul took his place at the front of the room. Two strange men followed him, taking seats behind the podium. Leslie frowned. She hoped that whoever they were, they wouldn't do anything to disrupt the budget meeting. She wouldn't tolerate anything ruining this big day for her. Although they were both pretty good-looking. One was all smiles as he looked over the gathering like he was trying to memorize each face. The other one looked uncomfortable in front of the crowd, and stared down at his feet. He wasn't as attractive as his grinning companion, but his hair looked nice and Leslie really liked his shirt.
Leslie shook her head. Now was hardly the time to be ogling strange men. Yes, it had been a few months since she dumped Justin, and she was starting to feel the itch to get back out there again. But today there were other priorities. Like getting her park.
Paul raised his voice. "Good morning everybody. Now, I know you all have your budget presentations ready, but there's been a change of plans."
Leslie's eyes went wide. Wait-what did he just say?
"Due to the crippling gridlock in city council," Paul continued, "we are postponing all planning and spending decisions indefinitely."
"Until when?" asked Leslie.
"Indefinitely," Paul repeated.
No, no, no. "And when will that end?"
"Later then now."
Oh god. "So this week, probably?" Today, damn it. She was supposed to get her park today.
"Look," said Paul, coming around the front of the podium to sit on the table. "We are bordering on a full blown crisis, Leslie, and the state government is threatening us with an audit unless we get our budget under control. So I've hired two new budget consultants to come in with fresh eyes to help us reorganize and pare down."
Leslie could feel her blood start to boil at the words "pare down."
Cities in crisis mode did not build new parks. Cities that were paring down did not build new parks.
This was her project-her triumph. The success that was going to elevate her career to the next level.
And now they were paring down?
"I'd like to introduce Chris Traeger and Ben Wyatt," said Paul, gesturing to the two men seated behind him. "They started reviewing all your budgets yesterday, and for the rest of the day they'll be coming around to each of your departments to introduce themselves and to start getting your perspective on our budget dilemmas. I expect you all to cooperate with them to the fullest extent. From now on, they are the word of god as far as your budgets are concerned."
The smiling man waved brightly, the other just raised his eyes to the crowd and nodded his head.
Leslie hated them. Why had she ever thought they were attractive? They were terrible. They were destroyers of dreams and killers of parks. If things were really as bad as Paul suggested, then it wasn't just her park at stake-it was her whole department. She had to fight them, and she had to win.
***
Chris was having a fabulous day. He strode through the corridors of Pawnee city hall, waving at all his new acquaintances. Such a lovely-if somewhat overweight-group of people. So far he loved being Chris Traeger. He particularly liked the name Traeger-the way it danced off his tongue. But the rest of the experience so far had been wonderful, too.
Chris had lived his whole life in large metropolises, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Denver, and even Indianapolis. (That had been one of the deciding factors in sending them to Indiana. Chris remembered the area well enough to sound like a native.) Pawnee was his first taste of small-town life, and so far it was proving to be utterly delightful.
He glanced over at Ben, who looked worn out and wilting though it was still early afternoon. Chris understood perfectly well why Ben still felt a little traumatized by his near-miss at the courthouse, but he would have thought Ben would be perking up by now. After all, they were safe under the umbrella of the Federal Witness Protection program. No one would find them here. And Ben grew up in a small town-Pawnee ought to feel like coming home for him. Instead, he seemed even more unsettled than he had in their two months of being shuffled under guard from hotel to hotel before the disastrous (nearly fatal) pre-trial hearing.
Well, if there was one thing that Chris had learned after three years of having Ben as his boss, it was that nothing made Ben calmer or more focused than work. Time to put that knowledge to good use.
"Next up is the Parks Department," Chris said. "I suggest that after the initial meet-and-greet, I return to the Public Health department to start going over their spreadsheets with them, and you can stay in Parks to do the same." Some good old-fashioned number crunching would be just the thing to settle Ben down.
"Sounds fine," replied Ben.
Chris nodded and led the way into the Parks Department. He greeted the waiting bureaucrats brightly, committing their names to memory. His memory skills had served him well over the years, and it was best to keep up his mental exercises here in Pawnee, even though his stay wouldn't be long.
He recognized Leslie Knope as the enthusiastic blonde from the department head meeting that morning. She was moderately pretty-not really Chris's type-but she also demonstrated a great deal of passion for her work, even inviting them on a tour of her department. People who felt passionately about their vocations were literally the best people on earth to work with.
Chris envied Ben for getting the chance to stay and work with her more closely. The people in Public Health didn't look half so interesting.
Oh well. There'd be plenty of other chances.
Chris headed back toward Public Health with a bounce in his step. Surely an hour examining facts and figures with Parks would leave Ben in a far better mood. His mood certainly couldn't get any worse.
***
Ben looked at the ceiling all through the "broken carousel" speech which Chris had spent the morning perfecting. Yesterday, just sitting in an office going over numbers, hadn't been too bad. But today, meeting with the mayor and visiting all the city departments all day, felt like a nightmare. It was Partridge all over again, only on steroids. Twice as big, but just as financially screwed. His only consolation was that this time the budget woes weren't his fault. In fact, he might actually be able to help fix them. Not that he was naïve enough to think that helping Pawnee would in any way redeem him for what happened in Partridge.
Ben had learned long ago that you could never really make up for past mistakes. The best you could hope for was to avoid making the same mistakes a second time.
Chris then insisted on letting the perky Deputy Director of Parks take them on a tour of her miniscule department. Ben recognized her from the department head meeting as the one who'd seemed most devastated at the news that no new spending would be approved. Ben knew her type-obnoxious, small-minded people puffed up with an inflated opinion of their own importance, convinced that their projects deserved more consideration than anyone else's. He'd met the same type during his disastrous flirtation with government back in Partridge, and he'd met them over and over again during his years in the private sector. He wished he could trade Chris and take Public Health instead of Parks. Anything to avoid being cooped up with Leslie Knope.
Grudgingly he joined Ms. Knope and Mr. Swanson in the Parks Department conference room to start going over their budget. As he arranged his materials on the table in front of them, Ms. Knope spoke up, "I really like your shirt."
Ugh. Time to stop the ass kissing before it really got going. "So, I'd like to talk about where you think there's waste in your department."
Ben watched in puzzlement as Ms. Knope adamantly defended the expenditures of her department and its personnel, while Mr. Swanson laughed and joked about his eagerness to see everything slashed to the bone. Who was really in charge here? And how in the world did these two people manage to work together on a daily basis?
"Well, Chris said you just had to tinker with things," said Leslie, defensively, when Ben told her just how deep the cuts would need to be.
For some reason, her passion for her department irked him. This was more than just the natural defensiveness people in her position normally showed. This was something deeper, and it unsettled him. "Yeah, he said that because that sounds a lot better then we're going to gut it with a machete." He knew the words were too harsh the moment he said them, but it had already been a long day.
Mr. Swanson laughed gleefully, making stabbing gestures with his hands, but Ms. Knope fixed Ben with an icy glare. "You're a jerk."
That one caught him off guard. Ass kissing, he understood. Defensiveness, he understood. But outright hostility? What purpose could that possibly serve for her, other than to put her own job on the chopping block? "I'm sorry?"
"I'm sorry-these are real people, in a real town, working in a real building, with real feelings."
What? "This building has feelings?" He knew he sounded like a jerk, only reinforcing her current opinion of him, but he half expected her to catch the sarcastic tone of his joke and respond in kind.
Instead, she responded with sincerity. "Maybe. There's a lot of history in this one. Maybe it does. How can you be so blasé about this?"
At that moment he realized why she unsettled him so much-she reminded him of the misguided young man who'd stood before the entire city government of Partridge, Minnesota, arguing passionately for the continued viability of a winter sports complex long after it was clear that the project was doomed. Yet she was a woman in her thirties, with an entire career in government to teach her the same kind of cynicism and self-interest that most of the other bureaucrats he'd ever met possessed. Why hadn't she fallen into that trap? How had she held onto that youthful passion? And how the hell could he work with someone so blind?
"Because I didn't cause these problems, Ms. Knope. Your government did." He injected perhaps a little too much venom into those final words. But after the dismal failure of government security at the courthouse in Atlanta, he didn't think too highly of any government right now-particularly not a muddled and mixed up small-town bureaucracy. He couldn't deal with this right now.
He rose to his feet, packing up his paperwork. "I'll get what I need from the spreadsheets." He left the Parks department without another word, and stalked back to his new office. He dropped his stack of papers on his table. God. He didn't know how he'd get through six months of this.
He sank to a chair, and rubbed self-consciously at the still-tender wound on his shoulder. He closed his eyes, and sighed. He'd been too hard on Ms. Knope, and he knew it. Just because he was putting his own life on the line to bring down a corporate tyrant didn't mean that he should start dismissing everyone else's concerns and priorities as unimportant. He knew that. He'd spent most of his own adult life consumed with the same kind of trivial concerns. It would be nice to live in that kind of world again-where his decisions and recommendations didn't tip the balance between life and death, justice and injustice.
Really, he ought to follow Chris's example and let himself relax for the next few months. Let himself forget his troubles in the simple worries of small-town government. It might help him forget his fears. Maybe he'd stop jumping out of his skin at every loud noise or creaking floorboard in the night.
He probably owned Ms. Knope an apology.
It was with that thought still in his mind that he heard Chris suggesting they go to the 21st birthday party for the dark-haired young woman who worked in the Parks department.
"It's the first social invitation we've received here in the great city of Pawnee," said Chris, "and I think we should make the most of it."
Ben wondered if Ms. Knope would be there. Probably-the party was for one of her colleagues, after all. He shrugged. "Sure. Why not?"
Part 2