(Am I Batman Yet?)
So Ben takes a bullet for a senator in Washington.
...But, you know, in a cute fic-y way.
This already sounds like a bad idea
(A/N: Just...... suspend belief and lean into the dumb fluff ok, Ben's in Washington -aka when I actually started writing this whoops- and pretend that Ben's on a bigger campaign than the one he actually worked on ok and April isn't there and... Yep. It's an AU that was a weird idea so... Just...You know run with it, friends)
“Hey,” He says into the pay phone that’s outside of Jen’s office building, “It’s Ben.”
She doesn’t reply, and he shakes his head quickly because she wouldn’t, he’s leaving her an answer phone message.
“Um, my phone’s not working because there was a power shock or surge or- something-” He tells her in a weary tone, “About an hour ago, and my blackberry was plugged into the wall to charge, and now it won’t turn on.”
He takes a breath, looking outside at D.C. It’s beautiful here, definitely.
But it’s not Pawnee.
“So I have no idea if you tried to call me, or if you didn’t, or- you know me,” He smiles, feeling like an idiot. “But anyway, I, uh, the party starts in about an hour and we’ll find out if John won or not, and so I just wanted to call and say that I love you and that I miss you and that I’ll see you in two days.”
Two days he thinks, a stupid sort of grin working its way onto his lips.
“Anyway,” He says, “Go maintain some parks, Councilwoman Knope.”
He takes the phone away from his ear, intending to slam it down into the receiver.
“Oh and just- call Jen if you need me- and... yeah. I can’t wait to see you, Leslie.”
And then he hangs up for real.
*~*~*~*~**~*~
They win.
We won, Ben realizes all of a sudden.
And it’s not really that great of a feat or anything, because John’s been doing this for a while now, but...
But Ben hasn’t. And god it feels good.
They’re inside, listening to the newly instated Senator’s speech. He and Jennifer and some of the other major players in the campaign are sitting on stage beside John, listening as he gives his prepared acceptance. He’s good, and Ben’s good, and everything is-
He stands up frantically, noticing the man at the back of the room. John’s reading his speech and the rest of the audience are facing him, facing the front of the room, now looking at Ben, looking as Ben frantically whispers to Jennifer ‘Is that a-’, looking at Ben confusedly as he hears the safety of a gun go off.
And it’s the audience, the camera crew who are focusing on the stage, that see Ben scramble out of his chair, slamming the newly instated senator to the ground as a gun is fired.
And it’s fine, it’s fine, because he misses.
...Well, he misses Senator Adams, anyway.
A bullet hits Ben on the right side of his chest, though. That doesn’t feel so great.
*~*~**~*~*~
Leslie’s watching the election online.
That means she’s about five minutes behind real time. So while she’s seeing the win being announced, waiting for Ben and Jennifer and John to come back on the stage they’ve set up at the hotel in D.C, Ben’s being rushed to hospital, gasping out in pain a little bit as they hoist him onto the stretcher, slurring out Leslie’s name as sirens ring in his ears.
Leslie, he cries before he blacks out, Leslie, Leslie, Les...
*~*~*~*~*
She watches as Ben stands up, watches as his face falls into a panicked state. But this isn’t the kind of panic that she saw on his face over the course of her campaign. This is genuine fear.
And then, of course, she watches her boyfriend get shot.
She can’t stop watching, clasping a hand over her mouth and crying out as they flash to the man who held the gun being tackled down and then back to Ben, watching as a man in the crowd comes up and puts him on his side, feeling Ben’s, her Ben’s, chest.
Leslie scrambles for her phone, eyes blurring as she tries to unlock the damn thing, hitting speed dial for Ann and waking her up in the middle of the night for what really can be classified as an emergency for the first time.
*~*~*~**~*~
Twenty minutes later the entire parks department are in Leslie’s house. Tom’s trying to find her a flight out of Pawnee in the next hour if at all possible, Ron’s handing over his credit card to pay for it, and Ann’s continually calling Jennifer Barkley from Leslie’s cell phone, hoping that eventually, she’ll pick up.
...But she’s probably getting quite a few phone calls, Ann thinks to herself quietly.
April and Andy are using their own laptop to try and get any more info online, and Leslie’s sitting with her eyes glued to the 24 hour news channel she pays for, waiting for Ben to come up, for them to announce that he’s ok, for Jennifer to ring her, for Ben to ring her, for Ben to come home-
“I can get you there in three hours.” Tom tells her.
“I-fine.” She says. “Book it.”
“Get me a ticket too,” Ann says, the phone still up to her ear. “I’m coming-“
“-Hello?”
“Jennifer!” Ann yells suddenly, gesturing wildly to the phone up to her ear, Leslie running over to snatch it out of her hands.
“Jennifer, this is Leslie Knope, how-“
“Ben’s fine,” Jennifer interrupts, and Leslie’s never been so glad.
“He’s fine,” Leslie breathes, repeating the words to herself as she sinks down into her couch.
“He got hit in the upper right of his chest,” She tells Leslie, “And it hit his ribs- or one of them, I don’t exactly know how many ribs are involved- but that’s a good thing apparently, because it stopped his heart or his veins or his- something-from getting hit or hurt.”
Leslie just repeats to herself over and over in her head that he’s fine. That Ben’s fine. Ribs can be healed.
“He’s in surgery right now, but, well, he’s one hundred percent alive, Leslie, I promise.”
“Thank-you.” She says softly, her eyes fluttering closed.
“I can send someone to pick you up from the airport if you want,” Jennifer offers. “I assume you’re coming up?”
“I’ll be there at 3.30.”
“Great.” Jennifer says, and Leslie assumes that she’s writing this down in one of her expensive devices that Leslie can’t get her head around.
“He was asking for you by the way.” She adds absentmindedly.
“Asking for me?”
“When he was in the ambulance,” She says sort of cautiously, realizing that Ben being in an emergency vehicle maybe isn’t exactly what Leslie wants to think about right now. “He just kept... Saying your name.”
Leslie shuts her eyes. “Thank-you,” she tells Jennifer again, before hanging up the phone and crying helplessly.
*~*~*~**~*~
There are no direct flights from Pawnee to D.C, so Leslie and Ann get a flight to Indianapolis first, where they then have to wait half an hour before getting the hour and a half, one-thirty in the morning flight to Washington. (Not the state, Washington, though, she babbles needlessly to one of Jennifer’s assistants or interns or whoever it is that’s driving them to Ben’s hospital. The city. The capitol.)
And then they’re there, George, or Jeff or Kevin or whatever he’s called leading them past the guards and up to Ben’s hospital room.
“What number is it?” Leslie asks him frantically as they ride in one of the hospital’s elevators upstairs
“Uh, he’s in 210,” He tells Leslie.
And as soon as the door starts to slide open, Leslie’s off, running through the hallway to get to him.
...But Ben’s not in room 210.
“...210 is where he’s going to be when he gets back from the recovery room,” idiot intern explains.
*~*~*~**~
They don’t put Ben into a normal hospital room until six in the morning.
Leslie doesn’t sleep; she just sits in the chair beside his bed- what will be his bed- and waits.
“Why are they taking so long, Ann?” She asks desperately.
“This is normal, Leslie. Anyone who goes into surgery has to spend time in the recovery room- Ben would have had a lot of anaesthesia.” She explains.
This doesn’t settle her any. Not until a nurse comes in and shepherds the pair of them out of Ben’s room.
Because this means he’s coming.
*~*~**~~
She’s standing just outside of his door when she sees him. He’s conscious, she thinks, his eyes seemingly open from what she can see of them.
She imagines him saying her name in the ambulance, a stream of Leslie, Leslie, Leslie, as he’s wheeled towards her.
But his eyes aren’t open, and he’s not saying anything. Ben’s out cold, and although the nurses assure her that he has been awake and talking, she still can’t help but feel the same tenseness that has been there since she saw that video of him being shot down in the first place.
She’s not allowed to sit in his room, they try to tell her. Quite frankly, though, Leslie Knope doesn’t care what a group of security guards think.
She knows what’s best.
And so she stays, sitting at his bedside for the few more hours that he sleeps.
*~*~*~**~*
When he wakes up, Ben’s completely disorientated.
“Les’, Leslie, Lesliman,” He slurs, reaching out a hand that’s connected to a IV drip to pat her hair. “You’re here.” He smiles lazily, blinking heavily at her.
Leslie just takes his hand and cries, folding her head down into his chest and sobbing into the blanket that’s there.
“Oh thank god, thank god, thank god,” she says again and again, because she knows he never died, that he’s been here and awake and breathing all this time, but- but-
“Please don’t cry, Lesliebear,” he mumbles softly, dipping his head down to kiss her hair.
She leans back up, wiping the tears from under her eyes before she kisses him hard to prove that Ben’s here and alive and ok, and-
Whoops. That’s the sound of his heart-monitor beating out of control.
*~*~*~**`
After that, a stream of nurses and doctors come in, and so does another one of those bodyguards, insisting that Ms. Knope you can’t be here, you’re not family.
“Yeah but I wan’ her to be my family, so she can stay, righ’?” Ben asks, still pretty heavily drugged up as he snuggles into his pillow.
Bobby can’t say no to that one.
(And neither can Leslie.)
*~*~*~**~
The last person Ben sees before he becomes more, well, sober is Ann.
“Ann Perkins!” He calls out delightedly as she enters 210. “Ann Perkins were you my nurse? I had very, very nice nurses,” he turns to tell Leslie in her spot next to his bed, “They gave me all of these nice injections and told me what a brave thing I did.” He grins stupidly. “But,” he says, his face softening, looking a little more serious even though his eyes are still glassed over and droopy, “I just wanted to see you, Leslie, I just- they wouldn’t listen to me when I was talking about Pawnee and Lil Sebastian and the Harvest Festival, and I just wanted you to come and feed me my mom’s chicken soup because I left you the recipe in your house and I just- I just-“
(It keeps going like that for quite a while. And later, she has a lot of fun with it all, too. “You called me Lesliebear, you know.” “...No.” “Yes!”
“No. We’re never mentioning that again regardless of whether or not it happened.” “Yeah, ok, Ben-” “Never ever, Lesliebear.”)
*~*~*~**~*~
Two days later they talk to Ben and Leslie about what exactly happened in the operating theatre. Blood transfusions and collapsed ribs and some very close calls.
It’s... It’s hard being reminded of just what exactly happened to Ben, looking at the saline drip that’s stuck in his hand and the scar that she saw the first time the nurses stripped Ben to give him a bath.
She reaches out for his hand, feeling his fingers move beneath her own and the tangible proof that he’s still here, still ok, still the same Ben as ever.
“Ok?” he asks.
“As long as you are,” she tells him, feeling breathless at just how much she’s realized she needs him.
*~*~***~
It’s awful, it’s so, so awful, but Leslie’s the one who’s been having nightmares, not Ben.
She just can’t stop thinking about how close he was to dying. How far away she was from not having Ben in her life anymore.
It’s- It hasn’t even been three years since he came to Pawnee, but that’s not enough, will never be enough, and she can’t help but look at him
now and see a countdown of the years in front of her- of how much time they probably have left together.
Ben just takes her head in his hands and whispers that he’s not going anywhere after this, that he’ll never leave her sight if that’s alright with her, and that he loves her too much to die yet.
Also, something about not going anywhere before seeing who wins the throne.
She manages to leave him alone with the nurses for a few minutes on the sixth day while she goes and to get coffee and calls Ann back home.
*~*~**~
On the seventh day-
“Ok, I finally managed to track down some half decent looking waffles, and I know that you don’t love them the way that you should, so I got some yoghurt too and a little bit of-“ Leslie has to stop as she looks up, because Ben’s not alone in his room.
No. He’s certainly not alone.
Because the president and first lady are standing beside him as he sits up in bed.
“Oh my god,” she says, hands shaking as she walks further into the room.
“Oh my god,” She says again. “Ben... honey... did you know that the President of the United States and one of the world’s most powerful women are in our room right now? Because I’m not totally convinced that I’m not dreaming, but it does explain why there was all of that extra security.”
Ben just smiles, and holds out his hand for her.
And that’s when she meets the president.
(“Joe Biden obviously wasn’t available, but that’s ok,” she tells them half way through the meet and greet, and she’s even allowed in the publicity photo, Ben correcting them when they say “Wyatt’s girlfriend,” to “Pawnee city council member Leslie Knope, actually.”)
“I’ve never been more glad that you’re alive,” she tells him afterwards.
“You just love me for my connections,” Ben smirks.
“Well duh.”
*~*~*~**~*~*~
Ben gets to come home on his tenth day in hospital, a private plane set up for the two of them that’s flying directly back to Pawnee.
Unheard of, that is, but this- Ben’s actions- have put Pawnee on the map.
A hero’s home, they call it, and still the footage circulates around the internet and on youtube, the photos from when they met the president and Ben’s remarks from that first interview with Shawna Malwere Tweep still weirdly big news.
Why not let Pawnee break the news for once, he’d said to Shawna as they spoke over the phone. Home advantage, right?
Ben Wyatt is just a campaign manager. He calls a small town in Indiana home, and his girlfriend is a city council member there.
(He also saved an American Senator’s life, but he doesn’t really think about that most days.)
“You’re a hero, you know,” Leslie tells him as she grasps his hand for the landing.
“So that’s why you love me,” he says back.
“I-” She doesn’t joke this time. “No. I love you, Ben, because you called Pawnee your home, after only living there for two years. You-“
“Pawnee isn’t my home,” he blurts out. “You are. You’re my home. Just... Wherever you are, that’s my home, ok?”
“And you’re mine.”
“...After Pawnee, that is,” he teases, laying his head on hers.
“Pawnee’s my first home,” she says, snuggling her head into the gap between his chin and his chest, “But it wouldn’t be right anymore if you weren’t there beside me.”
She knots her fingers with his, and that’s how they exit the plane.
...But, you know, in a cute fic-y way.
This already sounds like a bad idea
(A/N: Just...... suspend belief and lean into the dumb fluff ok, Ben's in Washington -aka when I actually started writing this whoops- and pretend that Ben's on a bigger campaign than the one he actually worked on ok and April isn't there and... Yep. It's an AU that was a weird idea so... Just...You know run with it, friends)
“Hey,” He says into the pay phone that’s outside of Jen’s office building, “It’s Ben.”
She doesn’t reply, and he shakes his head quickly because she wouldn’t, he’s leaving her an answer phone message.
“Um, my phone’s not working because there was a power shock or surge or- something-” He tells her in a weary tone, “About an hour ago, and my blackberry was plugged into the wall to charge, and now it won’t turn on.”
He takes a breath, looking outside at D.C. It’s beautiful here, definitely.
But it’s not Pawnee.
“So I have no idea if you tried to call me, or if you didn’t, or- you know me,” He smiles, feeling like an idiot. “But anyway, I, uh, the party starts in about an hour and we’ll find out if John won or not, and so I just wanted to call and say that I love you and that I miss you and that I’ll see you in two days.”
Two days he thinks, a stupid sort of grin working its way onto his lips.
“Anyway,” He says, “Go maintain some parks, Councilwoman Knope.”
He takes the phone away from his ear, intending to slam it down into the receiver.
“Oh and just- call Jen if you need me- and... yeah. I can’t wait to see you, Leslie.”
And then he hangs up for real.
*~*~*~*~**~*~
They win.
We won, Ben realizes all of a sudden.
And it’s not really that great of a feat or anything, because John’s been doing this for a while now, but...
But Ben hasn’t. And god it feels good.
They’re inside, listening to the newly instated Senator’s speech. He and Jennifer and some of the other major players in the campaign are sitting on stage beside John, listening as he gives his prepared acceptance. He’s good, and Ben’s good, and everything is-
He stands up frantically, noticing the man at the back of the room. John’s reading his speech and the rest of the audience are facing him, facing the front of the room, now looking at Ben, looking as Ben frantically whispers to Jennifer ‘Is that a-’, looking at Ben confusedly as he hears the safety of a gun go off.
And it’s the audience, the camera crew who are focusing on the stage, that see Ben scramble out of his chair, slamming the newly instated senator to the ground as a gun is fired.
And it’s fine, it’s fine, because he misses.
...Well, he misses Senator Adams, anyway.
A bullet hits Ben on the right side of his chest, though. That doesn’t feel so great.
*~*~**~*~*~
Leslie’s watching the election online.
That means she’s about five minutes behind real time. So while she’s seeing the win being announced, waiting for Ben and Jennifer and John to come back on the stage they’ve set up at the hotel in D.C, Ben’s being rushed to hospital, gasping out in pain a little bit as they hoist him onto the stretcher, slurring out Leslie’s name as sirens ring in his ears.
Leslie, he cries before he blacks out, Leslie, Leslie, Les...
*~*~*~*~*
She watches as Ben stands up, watches as his face falls into a panicked state. But this isn’t the kind of panic that she saw on his face over the course of her campaign. This is genuine fear.
And then, of course, she watches her boyfriend get shot.
She can’t stop watching, clasping a hand over her mouth and crying out as they flash to the man who held the gun being tackled down and then back to Ben, watching as a man in the crowd comes up and puts him on his side, feeling Ben’s, her Ben’s, chest.
Leslie scrambles for her phone, eyes blurring as she tries to unlock the damn thing, hitting speed dial for Ann and waking her up in the middle of the night for what really can be classified as an emergency for the first time.
*~*~*~**~*~
Twenty minutes later the entire parks department are in Leslie’s house. Tom’s trying to find her a flight out of Pawnee in the next hour if at all possible, Ron’s handing over his credit card to pay for it, and Ann’s continually calling Jennifer Barkley from Leslie’s cell phone, hoping that eventually, she’ll pick up.
...But she’s probably getting quite a few phone calls, Ann thinks to herself quietly.
April and Andy are using their own laptop to try and get any more info online, and Leslie’s sitting with her eyes glued to the 24 hour news channel she pays for, waiting for Ben to come up, for them to announce that he’s ok, for Jennifer to ring her, for Ben to ring her, for Ben to come home-
“I can get you there in three hours.” Tom tells her.
“I-fine.” She says. “Book it.”
“Get me a ticket too,” Ann says, the phone still up to her ear. “I’m coming-“
“-Hello?”
“Jennifer!” Ann yells suddenly, gesturing wildly to the phone up to her ear, Leslie running over to snatch it out of her hands.
“Jennifer, this is Leslie Knope, how-“
“Ben’s fine,” Jennifer interrupts, and Leslie’s never been so glad.
“He’s fine,” Leslie breathes, repeating the words to herself as she sinks down into her couch.
“He got hit in the upper right of his chest,” She tells Leslie, “And it hit his ribs- or one of them, I don’t exactly know how many ribs are involved- but that’s a good thing apparently, because it stopped his heart or his veins or his- something-from getting hit or hurt.”
Leslie just repeats to herself over and over in her head that he’s fine. That Ben’s fine. Ribs can be healed.
“He’s in surgery right now, but, well, he’s one hundred percent alive, Leslie, I promise.”
“Thank-you.” She says softly, her eyes fluttering closed.
“I can send someone to pick you up from the airport if you want,” Jennifer offers. “I assume you’re coming up?”
“I’ll be there at 3.30.”
“Great.” Jennifer says, and Leslie assumes that she’s writing this down in one of her expensive devices that Leslie can’t get her head around.
“He was asking for you by the way.” She adds absentmindedly.
“Asking for me?”
“When he was in the ambulance,” She says sort of cautiously, realizing that Ben being in an emergency vehicle maybe isn’t exactly what Leslie wants to think about right now. “He just kept... Saying your name.”
Leslie shuts her eyes. “Thank-you,” she tells Jennifer again, before hanging up the phone and crying helplessly.
*~*~*~**~*~
There are no direct flights from Pawnee to D.C, so Leslie and Ann get a flight to Indianapolis first, where they then have to wait half an hour before getting the hour and a half, one-thirty in the morning flight to Washington. (Not the state, Washington, though, she babbles needlessly to one of Jennifer’s assistants or interns or whoever it is that’s driving them to Ben’s hospital. The city. The capitol.)
And then they’re there, George, or Jeff or Kevin or whatever he’s called leading them past the guards and up to Ben’s hospital room.
“What number is it?” Leslie asks him frantically as they ride in one of the hospital’s elevators upstairs
“Uh, he’s in 210,” He tells Leslie.
And as soon as the door starts to slide open, Leslie’s off, running through the hallway to get to him.
...But Ben’s not in room 210.
“...210 is where he’s going to be when he gets back from the recovery room,” idiot intern explains.
*~*~*~**~
They don’t put Ben into a normal hospital room until six in the morning.
Leslie doesn’t sleep; she just sits in the chair beside his bed- what will be his bed- and waits.
“Why are they taking so long, Ann?” She asks desperately.
“This is normal, Leslie. Anyone who goes into surgery has to spend time in the recovery room- Ben would have had a lot of anaesthesia.” She explains.
This doesn’t settle her any. Not until a nurse comes in and shepherds the pair of them out of Ben’s room.
Because this means he’s coming.
*~*~**~~
She’s standing just outside of his door when she sees him. He’s conscious, she thinks, his eyes seemingly open from what she can see of them.
She imagines him saying her name in the ambulance, a stream of Leslie, Leslie, Leslie, as he’s wheeled towards her.
But his eyes aren’t open, and he’s not saying anything. Ben’s out cold, and although the nurses assure her that he has been awake and talking, she still can’t help but feel the same tenseness that has been there since she saw that video of him being shot down in the first place.
She’s not allowed to sit in his room, they try to tell her. Quite frankly, though, Leslie Knope doesn’t care what a group of security guards think.
She knows what’s best.
And so she stays, sitting at his bedside for the few more hours that he sleeps.
*~*~*~**~*
When he wakes up, Ben’s completely disorientated.
“Les’, Leslie, Lesliman,” He slurs, reaching out a hand that’s connected to a IV drip to pat her hair. “You’re here.” He smiles lazily, blinking heavily at her.
Leslie just takes his hand and cries, folding her head down into his chest and sobbing into the blanket that’s there.
“Oh thank god, thank god, thank god,” she says again and again, because she knows he never died, that he’s been here and awake and breathing all this time, but- but-
“Please don’t cry, Lesliebear,” he mumbles softly, dipping his head down to kiss her hair.
She leans back up, wiping the tears from under her eyes before she kisses him hard to prove that Ben’s here and alive and ok, and-
Whoops. That’s the sound of his heart-monitor beating out of control.
*~*~*~**`
After that, a stream of nurses and doctors come in, and so does another one of those bodyguards, insisting that Ms. Knope you can’t be here, you’re not family.
“Yeah but I wan’ her to be my family, so she can stay, righ’?” Ben asks, still pretty heavily drugged up as he snuggles into his pillow.
Bobby can’t say no to that one.
(And neither can Leslie.)
*~*~*~**~
The last person Ben sees before he becomes more, well, sober is Ann.
“Ann Perkins!” He calls out delightedly as she enters 210. “Ann Perkins were you my nurse? I had very, very nice nurses,” he turns to tell Leslie in her spot next to his bed, “They gave me all of these nice injections and told me what a brave thing I did.” He grins stupidly. “But,” he says, his face softening, looking a little more serious even though his eyes are still glassed over and droopy, “I just wanted to see you, Leslie, I just- they wouldn’t listen to me when I was talking about Pawnee and Lil Sebastian and the Harvest Festival, and I just wanted you to come and feed me my mom’s chicken soup because I left you the recipe in your house and I just- I just-“
(It keeps going like that for quite a while. And later, she has a lot of fun with it all, too. “You called me Lesliebear, you know.” “...No.” “Yes!”
“No. We’re never mentioning that again regardless of whether or not it happened.” “Yeah, ok, Ben-” “Never ever, Lesliebear.”)
*~*~*~**~*~
Two days later they talk to Ben and Leslie about what exactly happened in the operating theatre. Blood transfusions and collapsed ribs and some very close calls.
It’s... It’s hard being reminded of just what exactly happened to Ben, looking at the saline drip that’s stuck in his hand and the scar that she saw the first time the nurses stripped Ben to give him a bath.
She reaches out for his hand, feeling his fingers move beneath her own and the tangible proof that he’s still here, still ok, still the same Ben as ever.
“Ok?” he asks.
“As long as you are,” she tells him, feeling breathless at just how much she’s realized she needs him.
*~*~***~
It’s awful, it’s so, so awful, but Leslie’s the one who’s been having nightmares, not Ben.
She just can’t stop thinking about how close he was to dying. How far away she was from not having Ben in her life anymore.
It’s- It hasn’t even been three years since he came to Pawnee, but that’s not enough, will never be enough, and she can’t help but look at him
now and see a countdown of the years in front of her- of how much time they probably have left together.
Ben just takes her head in his hands and whispers that he’s not going anywhere after this, that he’ll never leave her sight if that’s alright with her, and that he loves her too much to die yet.
Also, something about not going anywhere before seeing who wins the throne.
She manages to leave him alone with the nurses for a few minutes on the sixth day while she goes and to get coffee and calls Ann back home.
*~*~**~
On the seventh day-
“Ok, I finally managed to track down some half decent looking waffles, and I know that you don’t love them the way that you should, so I got some yoghurt too and a little bit of-“ Leslie has to stop as she looks up, because Ben’s not alone in his room.
No. He’s certainly not alone.
Because the president and first lady are standing beside him as he sits up in bed.
“Oh my god,” she says, hands shaking as she walks further into the room.
“Oh my god,” She says again. “Ben... honey... did you know that the President of the United States and one of the world’s most powerful women are in our room right now? Because I’m not totally convinced that I’m not dreaming, but it does explain why there was all of that extra security.”
Ben just smiles, and holds out his hand for her.
And that’s when she meets the president.
(“Joe Biden obviously wasn’t available, but that’s ok,” she tells them half way through the meet and greet, and she’s even allowed in the publicity photo, Ben correcting them when they say “Wyatt’s girlfriend,” to “Pawnee city council member Leslie Knope, actually.”)
“I’ve never been more glad that you’re alive,” she tells him afterwards.
“You just love me for my connections,” Ben smirks.
“Well duh.”
*~*~*~**~*~*~
Ben gets to come home on his tenth day in hospital, a private plane set up for the two of them that’s flying directly back to Pawnee.
Unheard of, that is, but this- Ben’s actions- have put Pawnee on the map.
A hero’s home, they call it, and still the footage circulates around the internet and on youtube, the photos from when they met the president and Ben’s remarks from that first interview with Shawna Malwere Tweep still weirdly big news.
Why not let Pawnee break the news for once, he’d said to Shawna as they spoke over the phone. Home advantage, right?
Ben Wyatt is just a campaign manager. He calls a small town in Indiana home, and his girlfriend is a city council member there.
(He also saved an American Senator’s life, but he doesn’t really think about that most days.)
“You’re a hero, you know,” Leslie tells him as she grasps his hand for the landing.
“So that’s why you love me,” he says back.
“I-” She doesn’t joke this time. “No. I love you, Ben, because you called Pawnee your home, after only living there for two years. You-“
“Pawnee isn’t my home,” he blurts out. “You are. You’re my home. Just... Wherever you are, that’s my home, ok?”
“And you’re mine.”
“...After Pawnee, that is,” he teases, laying his head on hers.
“Pawnee’s my first home,” she says, snuggling her head into the gap between his chin and his chest, “But it wouldn’t be right anymore if you weren’t there beside me.”
She knots her fingers with his, and that’s how they exit the plane.