Go Big, Go Home, Part 4 of 7?

[princess_george]

Title: Go Big, Go Home (#4 of probably 7?)
Author: princess_george
Rating: The series is R; this instalment is PG-13 at most (mild language).
Length: A bit over 8000 words (this instalment)
Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters.
Timeline/Spoilers: Takes off from somewhere between "Pawnee Rangers" and "Meet and Greet" - AU from there. Basically another way of thinking through the questions posed by Season 4.
Summary: Leslie and Ben both have some work to do after they break up. Hijinks ensue. If you can say that about responsible grownups like these two.

Part One.
Part Two.
Part Three.

Thanks to rikyl and stillscape for all the help and encouragement - and now we have been joined by the lovely and talentedcraponaspatula who has provided some fabulous illustrations as well as the header! Everyone shares blame responsibility credit for a slightly risque series of jokes coming up. And thanks to the ficathon for all the prompts, some of are definitely going to be addressed in upcoming sections. This episode features a (not so dramatic, really) return of Ben Wyatt, Human Disaster, which, if it wasn’t a prompt somewhere, should have been, right? It also features interaction between two characters who have been the subject of a few prompts, I think, but I don’t want to give away who exactly quite yet.

Comments make me super-happy and make the work so much better, you have no idea. Just the notion that anybody’s reading is incredibly helpful and encouraging.



Monday

Ann chews on her pen. She knows what a terrible habit it is, both from a dental point of view and in terms of public health, but she’s stressed, and she figures she’ll just sterilize the pen later. She's trying to write the get-out-the-vote plan for Leslie’s campaign. If it’s all she’d been entrusted with, she’s bound and determined to do a great job. Plus, she’s been reading a lot about politics - and apparently in politics, in local politics, especially, a lot of the outcome can hinge on who actually shows up on voting day.

She has the list of potential volunteers open on her computer. There are plenty of names, with more being added all the time, as Leslie goes to personal appearances and convinces people to help with the campaign. The question is, how is Ann going to corral all these people to come and do stuff that would be useful on election day, to help Leslie win? Some of these folks are close to Leslie, but some obviously are relative strangers, and everyone is busy with their own lives. (Which Ann will keep in mind, even if Leslie sometimes forgets.)

What will she even do with them if they all show up?

She’s got a list of tasks to be completed, and the approximate number of people she’ll need for each, and how many will need a car at their disposal, and supplies to have on hand. She’s got a chart with the day broken into hours, and what needs to be done at each hour. Every time she edits that chart the day starts earlier and earlier, though...

She’s made a list of all the major events that could throw a wrench into the works - snow, heat wave, thunderstorms, raccoons, Eagletonians, phone system breakdown, Zorpian freakout, the Andy factor - and has contingency plans for each of them, but what if she forgets something?

At least, as a nurse, she knows how to make a schedule. But she does miss the scheduling software they have at the hospital. She’s put something together in Excel but she feels like it is going to be hard to use, especially if there are contingencies to plan for. She just keeps adding columns but she has a feeling she hasn’t figured out the most efficient way to go about this.

She’s got to admit, she’s feeling a bit out of her depth. She wishes she’d at least seen a local election campaign before, aside from just showing up to vote.

Ann sighs. She knows that if she is going to make any kind of real difference in Pawnee’s public health, she is going to have to figure out how to organize the community - how to reach people, how to motivate them, and how to get them to change their behaviour. She’s been reading books on how people make decisions, and it’s sometimes the little things that do it, like making people ask for more food if they want some, rather than putting it right on their plate, but it takes a lot of convincing to make even those small changes. And different people respond to different tactics.

So she’s realizing she’s got a lot to learn; but in some ways, everyone does. It’s not like anyplace else (except maybe Eagleton) have cracked how to prevent diabetes, either.

When she was hired for the public health job, Chris had mentioned her lack of government experience as something she’d have to work to overcome. Ann had thought he’d meant getting through the politics of it all - negotiating for budgets and so on. (Which was definitely its own learning curve.)

But she had also come to the realization that, while she knows what is important for public health from a medical or scientific point of view, she doesn’t know how to translate that to the actual public yet. She’d walked in only really knowing half of her job.

Which is why she’d wanted so badly to coordinate the volunteers for Leslie’s campaign, to get that experience. And why now she wants so much to do a great job on the part of it she was allowed to take on. (And, as she gets into it, she has to admit that she dodged a bullet when she’d agreed to keep overall volunteer management with Elizabeth, after all. This is plenty.)

But now she is struggling to put a plan together that she can have confidence in. She really doesn’t want to fail, both for herself and for Leslie. Maybe Leslie will be so far ahead in the polls by then that getting the vote out won’t matter, but Ann doesn’t want to take that chance. She feels responsible, at least for her part.

And, frankly, she wants to kick ass. She wants to be proud of her work at the end of the day.

She looks up at her computer again, thinking of switching gears to her regular job after spending her allotted half-hour working on the campaign over lunch. An email had come in from Ben to all departments, outlining the process to apply for capital projects funding.

She bets Ben never had any problems with Excel spreadsheets.

Wait.

Leslie and Ben can’t be together - in any sense of the word, clearly, given how awkward it is when they are in the same room - but that doesn’t mean she can’t ask Ben to help her with her scheduling spreadsheet.

Or the rest of it, come to think of it. He’s actually been elected before, and he’s been to every town in Indiana, practically. He must have some idea how it’s done.

If Leslie can’t ask for help from the one person who is close to her - or who was close to her - or whatever it is - who’s actually been elected to something, that didn’t mean Ann can’t. It probably means Ann should, in fact.

If it made him too uncomfortable, he could always say no to her, but she thought that he would help her just because she was asking him as a friend, for herself, not even for Leslie. He’s just that kind of guy. And, indirectly, it would help Ann do a better job for the city, in the long run. Election campaign, public health campaign... So it’s kind of his job to help her with this. Isn’t it? Sure it is.

Before she can overthink it, Ann sends Ben a meeting request for the next day entitled “Need a favour - coffee is on me,” setting the location as the nearest coffee shop outside City Hall.

She closes her election binder, and opens up her cholesterol education binder, and gets back to the work of saving Pawnee from from itself - and from Sweetums.

A few minutes later, she sees that Ben's accepted her meeting request, and she smiles.

*****************

Wednesday - morning

Leslie thinks it’s just as excruciating going through the debate for a second time. Maybe even more so, because now she can think of all the clever retorts she should have made, instead of the ones that actually came out of her mouth. Well, okay, she did manage to fire off a few zingers, but they were drowned out by her opponents as often as not. And she can see her campaign team cringing at critical moments as they rewatch it together, although they try to hide it, assiduously making notes.

And the worst part is, sometimes there really isn’t anything she could have said to make it sound less damning.

Yes, she did spent a night in jail in Eagleton for assault, and since she made up with Lindsay, she can’t really go on television saying she’s a jerk and deserved it.

And, oh yeah, she's on the record as having shot Ron in the head.

But a lot of the rest of it, well, that was partly being ganged up on. Leslie looks down at the typed transcript, which they’ve been using to follow along with the tape. It's sort of like the worst karaoke ever.

Mr. Hapley: Now is the time in our debate which we call the free-for-all, when the candidates are all free to give each other what-for. You may not understand what they are saying, but it will have the dynamics of a raccoon fight over the last waffle in the dumpster. And... go!

Mr. Forbes: Well, Perd, my records show that Ms. Knope has singlehandedly been responsible for over $10,000 of government expenditures on food-related recreational programs. At a time when the roads have potholes, and the traffic light at Brunswick and Main was out for eight hours last Thursday. Eight hours!

Ms. Knope: [talking over Mr. Forbes] Those were for the soup kitchen, and for kids’ nutrition classes! And I’m part of the Parks and Recreation department, of course I spend money on programs! That’s my job! And traffic lights sometimes go out! Especially when raccoons are always chewing through the wires, which reminds me, I’d like to take this opportunity to outline my 37-point raccoon mitigation program...

Mr. Forbes: [talking over Ms. Knope] Not to mention the money she has spent on balls. What, even a fancy schmancy wine and cheese party isn’t expensive enough for her? She needs to spend over $5,000 on balls? She’s been living high on the hog, funded by your tax dollars!

Ms. Knope: Those weren’t balls as in fancy dress balls! They were balls as in soccer balls, and basketballs, and baseballs! I handle almost all of Pawnee's balls. Again, may I remind you I work for the Parks and Recreation department? It’s not all badminton and shuffleboard, sir!

Mr. Forbes: Oh, well, then, I suppose now Ms. Knope will tell us they couldn’t just patch those up and use them again, hey? In my company we’re old-fashioned. We fix things before we buy new ones. We don’t have an endless supply of taxpayers’ money to replace things just because we can’t be bothered to pump up the balls again because we’re fat-cat bureaucrats riding the gravy train on the taxpayers’ dime. We take good care of our balls, just like our grandparents taught us. Ms. Knope thinks she can just reach out and pick herself up a new pair of balls whenever she feels like it.

Ms. Knope: [talking over both Mr. Forbes and then Ms. Langman] No, they weren’t just deflated, we couldn’t just blow them up again, they were completely exploded. They had been inflated and deflated so many times they were totally useless. They were punctured and cracked and we had already patched them over and over again. We take good care of our balls, but you can’t play soccer with cracked balls! Someone could get hurt that way! And no, I know that balls don’t just grow on trees, just dangling there for me to grab!

Ms. Langman: [talking over Ms. Knope] Perd, clearly Ms. Knope here was too busy promoting deviant lifestyles on the government clock to take proper care of Pawnee’s balls. Promoting gay marriage, showing paintings of bare-bosomed horse-ladies to schoolchildren, being invited to act in pornographic movies, organizing screenings of highly sexually explicit movies in a city park, getting drunk at the most dangerous club in town - Ms. Knope has certainly been busy. But who knows, Perd, maybe if she weren’t still playing this role of wild single gal about town she wouldn’t have gotten herself accused of being Councilman Dexhart’s new girlfriend and winding up pulling her pants down on television to try to prove she wasn’t his illicit lover!

Ms. Knope: Oh, come on, Ms. Langman, are you saying that married people never have affairs? Councilman Dexhart was the one who was married when that whole non-scandal was happening, did you ever consider that? My marital status has no relevance to anything in this election, and you blow it. Know it. You know it.

OK, despite that slight error at the end, it was her only truly awesome moment in the debate. Even Marcia was a bit thrown off her game by that, Leslie notes proudly. But the rest of it is more of the same. By the end she’s frantically yelling at the camera some Eleanor Roosevelt quote about inspiring others to service, which even she can’t hear properly, as Perd closes the debate and the sound from the candidates’ mikes is shut off.

She has to admit, she can kind of see everyone’s point about the crazy eyes, based on that debate.

And now they have moved on to rewatching the tape from Joan Callamezzo’s show this morning, where she interviewed Perd about the whole debacle.

Joan starts by asking, “Well, Perd, on a scale of very badly to incredibly badly, how badly did Leslie Knope lose that debate?”

Perd is smiling in his vacantly friendly way as he says, “Well, some would say she certainly was obliterated by her opponents. Others would say her opponents mopped the floor with her. And Joan, I’m told these are both metaphors for how badly Leslie Knope lost that debate."

Joan smooths her leopard-print dress, hardly able to contain her excitement; she practically purrs. Leslie’s eyes narrow, as Leslie Knope: Pawnee’s Biggest Loser? is pasted across the bottom of the screen. "Perd, I'd say it’s hard to say who did the most damage here. Marcia Langman, by painting her as a whore lacking any kind of moral compass, or Doug Forbes saying she spends taxpayer money, and here I quote, ‘like she’s got a platinum card that her rich daddy’s paying the bills for.’"

Perd nods. “One of those two did do the most damage, Joan. Although if she is in fact a prostitute, I’m curious to know why she still works as a city bureaucrat. Perhaps she’s moonlighting. And I would definitely like to know more about this wealthy father of hers.”

Joan replies, with some glee, “Well, Perd, let’s hope we find out over the course of the campaign! Eight more weeks to go!”

The tag on the bottom of the screen changes to Leslie Knope: Busted by Balls?. Leslie groans.

“Joan, this reporter suggests that viewers will certainly want to know this: will Ms. Knope, as Ms. Langman suggests, truly bring fire and brimstone down upon Pawnee? Or just brimstone? And will our umbrellas stand up to that storm? Our Channel Four meteorologist will be reporting on this potential forecast later today.”

“Excellent. Now, Perd, it’s just my opinion, but I think this has become a two-candidate race, as Leslie Knope falls out of serious contention. So, Pawnee voters, what did you think of the debate? Call in now.”

Leslie slumps down on the table and puts her head down on her arms. “OK, OK, you can shut it off now. I already heard the callers and I know they think I’m a really trashy version of FDR crossed with Imelda Marcos. How bad is it?” She doesn’t raise her head but lifts up her eyes.

William looks down at her with some sympathy, but really, he’s a pro. “Leslie, it’s bad. It was two against one, but, because they were attacking you on different issues, you won’t get as much of a sympathy bounce as we sometimes see when someone is outnumbered in a debate. It was obviously their strategy to drown out your message and discredit you, and, I have to admit, they succeeded.”

Leslie sits up again. “Ugh. This sucks. What do we do now?”

Elizabeth leans in. “Leslie, you do really well when people get to know you one-on-one. We’re taking this campaign retail. Clear your schedule. You are going to personally meet as many of Pawnee’s voters as we can put you in front of. Sleep is optional, you’ll eat in the car, you can work at night, tell your friends you’ll see them after the campaign is over, take all your saved up vacation time from your job if you can. Basically, you’re mine.”

“Yes. OK. Absolutely, whatever we need to do. But do you think we can win?”

William and Elizabeth look at each other. He speaks. “Honestly, it doesn’t look likely. The numbers are very weak, and you don’t really have another big high-profile event like this to give you a second chance with the mass audience. But it’s not over until election day, and we signed up to get you that far. So for today, go home, get some rest, and Elizabeth will start booking up your schedule.”

Mr. Kernsten had been quiet up until this point, but now he leans forward and says “Leslie, especially in Pawnee, an election isn’t over until it’s over.” He smiles and pats her hand briskly. "I will do what I can to counteract Doug Forbes' nonsense in the business community, behind the scenes. His numbers don't add up and he knows it."

Leslie looks wearily around the table. Her eyes are sparkling with tears, she can feel, but she blinks them back. She’s still in this. Sort of. “Thanks, all of you. I thought you might quit on me or something.”

William smiles. “No, Leslie. Don’t get me wrong. I want you to win. But I’ve been in this game a long time. If you get out when the going gets tough, you might as well not get in at all.”

Elizabeth says, “And we knew what your record was when we started this. You’ve been totally open with us about your history. The race is just harsher than we were counting on. So, onward - tomorrow’s another day. The media might be rough on you for a while yet, though.”

Leslie smiles at them, although not without some pangs about that whole totally open thing. “Thanks, everyone. I can handle the Pawnee media, I think. I already had the Dexhart scandal. How bad can it get?”



*****************

Wednesday - afternoon

When Ben pulls up across the street from his house and parks his car, he has the distinct feeling that he’s being watched.

Which is probably because he is.

Half of Pawnee’s fourth estate is holding a siege in his yard.

There are several media outlets parked in front of his house, which, even for Pawnee, is a strange sight. There’s the Channel Four van, although it looks like Perd took a pass from the stakeout. But Shauna Malwae-Tweap is leaning against her little blue car, wearing a parka. And there are a couple of other journalists who Ben remembers seeing around at Leslie’s announcement, and at various other events, all bundled up against the cold.

He's contemplating just driving away again, but Shauna has spotted him, and calls out "Ben! Ben Wyatt! What are you doing here?"

Oh, god. What's going on. OK, well, she didn't seem to be expecting him, at least. That's a good sign that it's not him they are waiting for, right? The rest of the reporters are stirring, like wolves scenting a wounded caribou (he was watching a nature documentary last night, and the images are sort of overlapping with reality right this second). They start to head over to his car, calling out "Ben! Bob! Bill!"

OK, so they don't know who he is. So they can't be waiting for him. So they probably haven't caught wind of his and Leslie's relationship. OK. Right. So this is about something else. There's a Parks Department car parked on the other side of the street, so he has a pretty good guess.

One lesson from Ice Town that he’d been hoping never have to use again: nothing good ever came of someone pausing in front of their car to find out why reporters are yelling questions at them. And it's even worse to wait in your car while the reporters swarm around it. And then you can't get out of the car, and your mom has to come out to shoo them away...

So he takes a deep breath, opens the door, and plows through the phalanx of reporters towards the house. His picture is taken at least ten times while he does that. He hopes they got his good side. Whatever that is.

As he walks up the sidewalk, they fire questions after him, like “Don’t you work at City Hall, too?” but he ignores them. One of them yells "Are you part of this sexual relationship too?" which almost gives him a heart attack, but since that's one of the reporters who called him Brian, he still feels pretty confident that he's not the target today. Just... keep going.

He’s pretty sure someone was peeking through the gap in the living room curtains, because when he looks in that direction, he can see the telltale swaying, and - oh god, he was right - a flash of blonde hair.

When he opens the door, he’s not at all surprised to find Andy, April... and Leslie, who's clearly frustrated and upset. In fact, she’s pacing like a caged raccoon.

“Hey, everybody, how’s your day going? Totally normal, right?”

“Hey, Ben! Did they take your picture when you came in? Crazy, huh? Maybe your parents will see that on the internet, you should call them.”

“Yeah, Andy, that was my first thought. No, actually, my first thought was, did Brangelina decide to come over to play Xbox with you?”

“Wow, are they going to do that? Because that would be awesome!” April catches Andy’s eye, shakes her head, and he looks disappointed.

“Look, why is the media camped out on the front yard? Seriously, does anyone have an answer to that?” Ben regrets, but can’t quite prevent, the slightly snarky tone that has crept into his voice.

“It’s my fault. I’m sorry.” She’s clearly trying to take a professional approach - although she doesn’t quite look directly at him. “I led them here. It’s like hunting, except I’m the prey, and this makes me much sorrier for all those birds. And that deer. This is awful.”

“How... why... “ Ben eventually settles on an actual question. “Why are they hunting... chasing you?”

“They’ve been tailing me all day. It’s from the debate, the whole...” she waves her hands around in a flailing kind of way. “They smell blood, I guess.”

She starts pacing again,and continues. “I was trying to just, you know, live my life as normal, but then I had to drop off some leaflets here, I wanted to do it early, before... before rush hour traffic,” and here Ben knows that what she really means is before you got home from work, which, honestly, he appreciates, “and when I went to leave, they took pictures of all of us together at the door, and asked us all sorts of questions about whether we’d just had a threesome, and wasn’t that against City Hall fraternization rules,” here she shoots Ben a lightning-quick look, “and who did what in the threesome, and I was so shocked, I just panicked and slammed the door again. And my campaign advisors are holed up in a meeting with some big shots in Indianapolis and aren’t answering their phones.”

Ben puffs out a breath. “Wow. I mean... I knew the coverage had gotten a bit over the top, but this is...”

“A whole new level of weird, yes.”

“Even for Pawnee.”

“Even for Pawnee.” She looks up at him, with a flash of anger at that, somehow, angry at him, maybe? What did he do?

“I’ve been telling Leslie that, if they think we’ve had a threesome, we might as well just go ahead and do it, but she’s turning me down.” There’s a gleam in April’s eye as she says this, and she shoots Ben a sly look. To see if he’s shocked, probably.

“Very funny.” Ben’s hoping this line of discussion from April doesn’t go any farther, because it’s already plenty awkward.

At that point, Tom walks in, just barely avoiding hitting his own head as he grins out at the cameras while he simultaneously closes the door.

“Hey, everyone, I hear there have been some shenanigans going on here, and I wasn’t invited! What gives?”

“Thanks for coming, Tom. What are we going to do?” Leslie sounds really morose. She’s really in trouble here. Ben doesn’t think he’s ever seen her quite as out of ideas as she is right now.

“Well, for starters, Leslie, you should definitely be more discreet about your threesomes, am I right? Plus Donna says that Greg Pikitis dropped off a package of ping pong balls at the office for you, apparently with writing on them. Can't wait to read them.”

Leslie groans.

Ann races through the door, slamming it behind her. “What a bunch of jerks! Hi, everybody.” She sees him in the corner, propping up a wall. “Oh, hey, Ben. Sorry I didn’t knock,” she gestures at the door, “they just freaked me out a bit.”

“That's rude. You’re going to have to buy us a new door for that.” April slumps down next to Andy.

Leslie jumps up and hugs her. “Oh, Ann, beautiful Ann. Thanks for coming to my house of shame. Well, their house of shame. My shame. Their house of my shame.”

Ann holds Leslie at arms’ length and smiles at her. “I wouldn’t miss it. Should we just start the lesbian rumors again, then, and have this whole experience be complete?”

Leslie laughs, but miserably, if that’s even possible, while April puts an arm on Andy’s shoulder and Ben shoots Tom a withering look, saying most clearly Dude, now is NOT the time.

Luckily, that’s the moment when Ron comes into the room, but from the kitchen. “Hello, all.”

Hang on, Ben thinks, from the kitchen?. “Hey, Ron, have you been here this whole time?”

“No, son, I just came in the back way to avoid those hellhounds out front. You should let your neighbours know that the southwest corner of their fencing is rotting from the bottom and they need to get the posts replaced. I know just the man who can provide them with lumber that’s been cured competently.”

April looks marginally concerned. Or maybe impressed. “In the green house just behind us? Don’t those neighbours have a dog? That, like, attacks people and raccoons and stuff?”

“Yes, but you’d be surprised how quickly a tune from a handcarved wooden flute lulls even the most bloodthirsty canine right to sleep.” Ron turns his attention to Leslie, who was back at the window peeking out again. “So, Knope, you’ve barricaded yourself in this house like a fugitive, I see.”

“It’s just so frustrating!” Leslie bursts out, as she flops down onto the couch. “I mean, the debate was bad enough, but this treatment, it’s not worthy of Pawnee. It’s enough to make me wonder why anybody goes into politics, and if I’m wondering that, you know anybody else would!” Ben can’t look anywhere near her. He bites his lip and looks down. He wishes... he just wishes he could do something. He wants to put his arms around her and tell her everything will be all right, that she’ll get through this, somehow, that she doesn’t deserve this, that she can rise above it.

“Hey, Leslie, I’ve been meaning to ask you, why do people go into politics?”

Ben jumps in out of a - probably utterly misguided - sense of protectiveness, “Andy, really, I don’t know if this is the time...”

But Leslie sighs, and says, “To do something good, Andy. To... to be able to see things you want to change, and bring people together to change them. To do things you can’t do as just one person. To do things you have to have a whole group of people to do.”

“Like an orgy!” Tom can’t resist. Ann punches him on the arm.

But suddenly Ben is struck by something. “And look what you just did, you asked people to come here.”

Leslie looks up at him sharply. “What of it?” She sounds defensive.

Ben tries to filter any possible snark or even discomfort out of his voice, tries to sound at least neutral. “No, I mean, your impulse was to gather people around you. And you know that saying, that sunshine is the best disinfectant...”

Leslie tilts her head, listening. “Yeah...”

“Well, why not let the sun shine in here?”

Her brow is furrowed. “What?”

“Leslie, you went into politics to bring people together. They,” he gestures towards the front window, “are making it all sordid and silly and trashy. So right now you’re trapped in here with this trumped-up nothing of a scandal, not because of anything you, actually, uh, did,” and he can’t quite look at Leslie as he says that, and he can’t look at Ann or Ron either, and somehow he wants to avoid April’s eye as he says this, too, why is that? So he looks at the floor next to Andy’s sneaker for a moment. “But because of a conclusion they jumped to. A conclusion they have fabricated.”

Ann takes up the thread. “I think I get it! Why not use the fact that they're all here - and we’re all here - to show them who you really are? Someone who brings people together?”

Leslie’s starting to see what they might be getting at. “So..”

Ann grins at her, and then looks questioningly over at Ben, who nods. “Yeah. Invite them in!”

Leslie looks hesitant. “Would ... is that really what you had in mind? Would that really be okay with you? This is your home...” She’s looking at Ben as she says that, but then pulls her eyes away to check with Andy and April, too.

They both shrug. “Fine by me.” “Sure, why not?” But April looks up at Leslie with a look that’s definitely not her usual neutral-to-hostile demeanor - she looks almost admiring.

Leslie looks back at Ben, looking for real permission, and he feels everyone watching him as he says, carefully, “Really, it’s fine with me. Just as long as you think it would actually help. I mean, honestly, it’s the kind of thing I wish I’d had the courage to do when I was impeached. My family had the media hovering around for weeks on end. Mind you, there was no other story for the Partridge media to cover, and it was only two guys sharing a tape recorder between them, but still. Maybe it would have ended faster if I’d come out and talked to them sooner - I’d have gotten boring and they'd have moved on.”

He sees Ann looking at him a bit anxiously, and half-smiles at her in a way he hopes is reassuring. He’s nervous about this, sure, but if the media suspected anything about him and Leslie, they would have put his name on the front cover of the Pawnee Sun long ago. And they wouldn't have been calling him "Bob" earlier, he's pretty sure.

Tom pipes up, “Leslie, hiding out here makes it look like you have something to hide. Which you clearly don’t. I mean, come on.” Ann rolls her eyes.

Ron crosses his arms and, frowning, looks at Ben seriously for a moment, then at Leslie, and, apparently satisfied, says, “That is... not a bad idea. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

Leslie takes a breath, smiles, and looks around the room. “Well, how much worse can it get, I guess? All right, let’s bring them on in and show them what we’re all about!”

Tom lights up, and swings into action. “OK, first we have to tidy this place up a bit, get rid of anything controversial that the media might latch on to. Andy, Ben, you’ll have to give me your porn collections for safekeeping.” Ben just raises his eyebrow, while April puts a pre-emptive hand on Andy’s shoulder.

Tom points finger guns at them, cheerfully. “Worth a shot. Anyhow, this place should look at bit tidier, but not too clean. Lived-in but respectable. Andy, April, hop to it. Leslie, you need to pull your look together just a little. Hit the bathroom and don’t come out until you look like nobody would ever want a threesome with you. You know, the way you usually look when you come to work. Ann, go with her, you know the look I’m going for. Ron, set us up with some pizzas - let’s show them a little southern Indiana hospitality. I’ll do media liaison.”

“I’ll help with that.”

“Dude, no offense, but you of all people shouldn’t go anywhere near the media.”

Ben frowns at him. “Tom, I am the most senior city employee here, and I actually live in this house. Given that I’m physically here already, it would look weird if I didn’t go with you to invite them in. It will look more legitimate if I’m involved. And I get why you’re worried, I really do, but,” he shoots a look towards Leslie that he hopes projects calm and confidence, which is really mostly the case, “I’ll be fine. I can handle any Ice Town questions they throw at me this time. I’ve been broken in by the Pawnee media. And we’ll create talking points that can help deflect touchy questions that any of us might get.”

Everyone looks at everyone else.

"OK, let's do this!" Leslie is starting to sound more like herself.

"Come on, Leslie, let’s make you look juuuuust good enough." Ann hustles Leslie off to the bathroom, and everyone else gets moving.

"Back here in ten minutes for talking points briefing!" Tom yells.

"I guess you aren’t interested in my porn collection, Tom?" April mutters, just loud enough for him to hear, as she takes off after Andy.

"Does it handle as many balls as Leslie's?" Tom calls after her.

"Ball Handler! New band name! I called it!" Andy yells from the kitchen.

****************************

Friday

The crazy thing is, it sort of worked.

After they had reconvened to go over the talking points - we’re a team, Leslie inspires us, we have great respect for everything she does and we applaud her commitment to public service, of course we are close, that’s what happens when you work with someone awesome like Leslie Knope, we’re all helping with her campaign but only during off-hours and away from city property, as the laws stipulate - the pizzas arrived and they invited all the journalists in. The reporters, the camera operators, the technicians, everyone. They fell upon the pizzas like ravenous raccoons, and, come on, who can still be hostile when you’ve just given them delicious pizza?

Mind you, Shauna Malwae-Tweap’s headline the next morning was still “Nope to Knope?” but at least there was a question mark. And the picture they ran was a lot more flattering.

But the Pawnee Sun keeps harping on the story of the gay penguin wedding, and won’t stop fawning on Doug Forbes, whose “plan” for city finances makes fascist hard-ass-era Ben look like he was spending like a drunken sailor, for goodness’ sake, and who still won’t admit he can’t cut so much money from the budget without cutting services. Probably because Alexa Softcastle wouldn’t have a second slice of pizza, and maybe because Tom tried to hit on her.

And Joan Callamezzo had Marcia Langman on her show this morning and asked her whether she thought pizza was part of the problem in the city’s obesity epidemic, and was it responsible of Leslie to be promoting pizza, for crying out loud.

So it’s not like the media has come over to her side or anything, and the polls are still ugly. Really, things have just stabilized. But Leslie is starting to feel like she might have something to build on. Plus, the media stopped following her around like hunting dogs on a wounded deer, so that’s something.

At one point that evening, after chatting with the Channel Four reporter about her plans to ease traffic congestion downtown with a few well-placed left-turn lanes (she’s done a full traffic-flow analysis chart), Leslie had glanced quickly around the room, and couldn’t help but feel proud of the whole team.

They’d paired up - Ron and Andy, Ann and April, Ben and Tom - so that there was a talker and a not-so-much-of-a-talker in each pair. April had even agreed to be polite to Ann and everything. Unfortunately Ann had then given her a hug, so they’d had to smooth things over a bit, but, still, it seems to be working out. Leslie was floating between the different groups and trying to personally handle as many of the big questions as she could.

Everyone was doing their very best, and it felt... it just felt right. It felt like the right thing to be doing, the right way to handle this, Leslie Knope-style. She felt like she was back on her game, and she had the whole team - and especially Ben - to thank for that.

At one point, she had even caught Ben’s eye for a split second, and they smiled quickly at each other from across the room before they both looked away. With so many people around, the pressure to act normal around him hadn’t been too bad, really. It was such a weird situation overall, she didn't think anybody had noticed anything. And yeah, they both knew that if the media had any idea of the real story they’d be all over them, but since they aren't, they clearly don’t. So they could get through this. Just another crisis averted by quick thinking and teamwork, right?



But at the end of the night, as everyone was cleaning up and saying their goodbyes, he didn’t meet her eye again, and she was reminded that this happened in his own house, with his career at risk too, if someone had slipped up or something had gone horribly wrong. That he had nothing to gain, and a lot to lose, and she felt awful about it.

He busied himself with the trash bags in the back, just as she was leaving, so she couldn’t even really say thanks, just waved at him from across the room. Not that anything she could say would have made up for it. And then, she saw him heading out the back door to take out the trash, and she was reminded of how he would be leaving soon, for good. She watched him step away from the pool of light in the back yard, and into the darkness.

When she got home, she looked around her living room, and sighed. She flopped onto her couch, turned on C-Span, and thought, well, he’s probably watching the exact same thing, at least. So she curled up and fell asleep in front of energy policy committee meetings.

*********************************************

Monday

He’s all set. He’s got all his budget sheets, he’s got his spending history, he’s got his historical precedents, he’s got his political analysis in his back pocket.

He’s got his smoothest hair, and his skinniest tie, and his shiniest shoes (somehow he’s feeling like the shoes matter; don’t ask why, he’s got no idea - maybe because soldiers are always shining their boots during basic training in the movies?).

He doesn’t know why she called this meeting, so he assumes she’s got some agenda, something she’s going to spring on him.

But he’s ready for battle.

Before he goes through the door, he takes a deep breath, gives his head a shake, and steels himself. Then he walks in and takes a seat, saying brusquely “I have a busy day today, so let’s get straight to the point here, if you don’t mind.”

Marlene sits back in her chair and says, calmly, “Hello Ben. I was hoping to have more of a... personal conversation today.”

He can’t help but show his surprise in his face. First tactical error. Damn it. Recover. Recover. “OK. What? Why... what?” He’s starting to sputter. He knows it. He can’t quite stop it. But he can stop talking. So he does. Stops. Waits for her to continue.

But this can’t be good.

Breathe.

“Relax, it’s not an interrogation. I wanted to talk about your job search.”

“My what? What are you talking about?” He’s trying to seem completely shocked by the question, as if it hasn’t ever crossed his mind, which isn’t too much of a stretch, really; the shock at least. What the hell? He’s barely started. Is she sleeping with Chris or something? No. No. Unthink that. No. Game face back on. Game face.

Shit.

Marlene starts counting on her fingers. “Well, so far, by my reckoning, you’ve talked with the president of the community college, Cindy Miller over at county, nice woman, by the way, isn’t she, very attractive,” she looks up at him briefly, was that a warning look, what was that about? “the CEO of the hospital, and...” she puts on her reading glasses to check a list in front of her “... the head of the municipal pension fund. Certainly sounds like the beginnings of a pretty serious job search to me.”

“How on earth... have you been following me? Am I under surveillance or something?” Who is this woman? Well, Leslie’s mother, that’s who. Ben’s starting to see the source of Leslie’s work ethic, albeit in a somewhat disturbing way.

“Ben, you haven’t stayed in one town very long in your career, have you? One thing you’ll learn is that people pay attention. Sure, there are secrets, and some of them even stay secret.” Here she gives him an unmistakeably stern look over her glasses.

“But I’m someone who pays attention to the people who are important to me. While I give Leslie her space and she gives me mine, Leslie is the most important person of all. So, anyone who is important to her is important to me too.”

Ben looks just over her shoulder at the mantelpiece, and clears his throat. “As I am sure you know, I’m not important to Leslie any more...”

Marlene waves her hand dismissively at this, but Ben doesn’t really know how to interpret the gesture. “So, are you going to let me help you with this, or not?”

“Wha... help me?” He’s shaking his head, his brows are furrowed, yeah, he’s not really in control of this situation. Good lord, didn’t he used to be a competent professional?

She gives him a look as if he’s the slowest kid in the class. “Yes. Help you. You clearly want another job. You want to leave the city government, for... reasons of your own, let’s say, and you’re looking for something still in Pawnee, but someplace that can really use your skills and still give you a good challenge, correct?”

At this juncture he realizes denial of the plain facts is clearly pointless. “Yes. Yes, that’s true. But I’d hoped that it wouldn’t be public knowledge quite this quickly.”

Although he knew that the hospital CEO had phoned Chris within ten minutes of Ben leaving his office...

“Not many people have the network I have, and you aren’t on very many people’s radar. Yet. Nobody is expecting you to want to move from your current job this soon. But, you have a very unusual background for Pawnee. There aren’t a lot of people who move here from elsewhere with such varied senior experience. Six months from now people would be approaching you with opportunities.”

Ben starts to think the faster he can get out of here, the better. Discretion being the better part of valor and all that. “Listen, I really appreciate the offer of help, but I’ll be fine. I think it might be more appropriate, uh, best if I just do this on my own. Myself. It’s simpler, and I can handle it...” He moves as if to stand up.

Marlene sits forward and puts her elbows on her desk. “For starters, what do you know about what’s going on at the college?”

“Um, I just heard about the merger of the two colleges from Cindy Miller, that they were looking for someone to head up the administration of the new college, that neither of the admin heads of the two colleges that are merging together were considered likely candidates, so they were doing a search.”

“Yes, but do you know why they weren’t?”

She’s got him there. He doesn’t even think he asked that question, come to think of it. “No.”

She sits back again. “Without knowing where your opposition might come from, how can you defeat it?” She waves her palms up, then clasps her hands in front of her, waiting.

This is starting to feel like some of the more uncomfortable discussions he’s had in various towns he’s audited. He sits back and holds up his hands as if to say stop. “Look, Marlene, I’m not comfortable with any expectation of a quid pro quo arrangement...”

She bristles, looking a little offended. “Nobody’s asking you for that, how tawdry. Ben, look, I know this town, and you don’t, at least not like I do. You could use some guidance. Some information. Think of it as the kind of thing I do to build my network of like-minded people.”

He can’t help but be skeptical. “I don’t get it. Why would you help me? Leslie and I broke up.” He wills himself to look directly at her.

She tilts her head, a funny look on her face that he can’t really place. Almost bemused, almost flirtatious (Oh, god, no, please no.), almost feeling sorry for him? “Because, Ben, it’s what people do. They help each other. Take the long view of it.”

She holds his gaze, and suddenly he can see Leslie in her face; hints of Leslie’s generosity, Leslie’s willingness to do things for other people. Marlene is more hardened, more calculating, but she’s not so far from her daughter, really, in some ways. There’s something genuine in her intentions here, even if Ben can’t quite figure out quite what.

He also has a sense that this is where Leslie got her tenacity, and figures if he turns her down, he’ll just be hauled in here on a weekly basis, with an itemized list of the meetings he’s had, and a thorough analysis of his missteps along the way.

So, he gives in. Even if he suspects this offer might be coming be out of some kind of pity. “OK. OK, thanks. I can use some... guidance, I guess.”

“All right then, take out your notebook. Start writing this down. The admin guy from the Pawnee college is a bumbling fool. Been in place for twenty years. Thinks his main job is keeping raccoons out of the classrooms. They’re thrilled to have this chance to get rid of him - he’ll be getting a retirement package, and he’ll be happy as a clam with that. The one from Eagleton is trickier - she thinks she’s qualified for the bigger job, but the problem is that she has always worked with such a cushy budget that nobody thinks she can do the cutting they’ll need to do to realize the efficiencies required from merging the two colleges together... Plus she’s alienated some of the Pawnee-based board members already with her... well, let’s just say her attitude. Which is why they’re looking external, hence they were interested in talking to you. You haven’t been in Pawnee long enough to be considered too biased against Eagleton, either, and that’s going to be an important factor in hiring...”

A half hour later, he’s got eight pages of double-sided notes about the opportunities he’s already been pursuing, three new leads - including one at the school district itself (“It’s running government relations, much more senior than it sounds, you’d get a chance to show off your crack negotiation skills” - at this they share a bit of a smile) - and an agreement, somehow, to meet with her again in a month. It’s a bit dizzying.

As he’s getting up to leave, he says, “Marlene, I appreciate this very much. You caught me off guard at first...”

“Don’t worry about it. I know how I can come across.”

He smiles at her, reaches across the desk to shake her hand. It feels almost comfortable.

“See you soon, Ben.”

“Definitely.”

“Bring me a coffee next time, though, will you? Just a latte, no whipped cream, two sugars.”

“Fair enough. A coffee I can do.”

“Try to keep it in the cup, not on your shirt, this time.”

She’s still Marlene, after all. Can’t let him go too long without putting him off-balance. “Oh, haha.”

He’s self-conscious as he leaves, tries not to bang the door. When he gets back to his desk, he puts a reminder in his calendar about their next meeting, and the coffee order. And sends an email to the contact Marlene suggested at the school district, asking for a meeting to discuss the job there.

He decides he’s just not going to think about how weird it is that Leslie’s mother has somehow become his local mentor. Just not going to think about that, nope. No pun intended.

********************************************* Here's Part Five.

In the next chapter: Leslie has an ethical dilemma. April does something useful. Jerry does something useful. Leslie drinks a coffee without whipped cream. I know. It’s a strange chapter. But there’s also some Ben bedhead. You’re welcome.

*********************************************