Launching - Part 2

Oct 24, 2012 21:41

Part 2 of this fic (which is 4000 words, both parts together).

Part 1 is here.

Leslie is in the midst of arguing a point of order when she senses something, and she looks up, and there he is, standing at the back of the room, leaning against the wall arms folded, beaming at her. She grins back, recommences hammering Dexhart on the debate process, and wins her point. Boo-yah, scumbag!

She doesn’t need to look up to know Ben is smiling at her for that, but she does anyhow.

What’s he doing here? He doesn’t look like there’s a problem, but why? It’s nobody’s birthday. Just a regular Tuesday. Maybe he’s got news? What kind of news would he have wanted to come deliver in person? Hoo boy.

Deep breath. Refocus. Howser is talking now, so it’s her turn next.

Once the debate is concluded, they take a vote, and, just like that, Pawnee is no longer the last town in Indiana, possibly America, that forbids laughter on the Sabbath. Leslie pulls out the page in her padfolio where she has her list of Top 50 anachronistic laws and crosses this one out. And sighs. Only the second one dealt with, and a lot of much tougher ones left on the list. Well, she’s only a few months into her first term.

Next week: African-American people being allowed to walk on the sidewalk. Legally. Onward.

When the meeting concludes, he waits for her to finish, although there are a few people he speaks with at the other end of the room, people he met during the campaign and people he knows from when he worked for the city. He's almost working the room, really.

Once she reaches him, he gives her a huge smile and a bigger hug, and a warm kiss full of promise, and that makes some of the flutterings of nervousness ease just a bit.

"What a surprise! What are you doing here?"

He smiles again, and glances around the room, "Well, come on, let's go talk."

Hand in hand, they go back to her council office. She drops her bag on the desk and starts to shuffle her papers to get ready to leave, but instead he pulls her hand and leads her to one of the chairs, and sits down next to her, leaning forward, elbows on his knees.

“Listen, Leslie, I have news.”

He looks serious, excited. So handsome and professional. When he comes back from DC he’s got that big-city glow about him.

This is it. Things are about to change. And probably not in a good way. Or, not good for us. Good for him. Which is good. In general. I can do this. We can do this.

She swallows, tries to put on her bravest face. “OK, what’s up?”

“I’ve got an opportunity. I wanted to talk it over with you, because there are some implications for you. For us.”

She takes a deep breath. “Ben, listen, whatever it is, you need to do what’s best for you. I’ve been thinking, Ben, I don’t think you can stay in Pawnee. What can you do here? You’ve outgrown the town. I... I haven’t, at least not yet, but I understand. You have to follow the opportunities. And we can make something work. We'll figure it out. So, what is it, but just so you know, I know it’s not going to be here.”

She steels herself, looks up at him, and he's smiling, a glint in his eye.

“No, it is here. Or, more or less here. Listen, Leslie, the opportunity is to run for office."

"What? Where? What? Ben!..."

"Probably for Indiana state Representative. I can work my contacts in Indy and around the region. I wanted to talk it over with you. I’ve got backers, supporters. I could run next year - the incumbent isn't running, and the field isn't looking too impressive so far. While I'm building up my local contacts, in the meantime I can live here, in Pawnee. I can do some consulting long-distance for the DC crowd, there are a few campaigns I can do some speechwriting and policy analysis for from a distance, and I can do some Indianapolis-based financial consulting, and I’ll have to keep that up anyhow since a state legislator needs a day job, and I’ll be able to be based here, although I’d have to travel sometimes...”

She’s just been blinking at him for a while now, it seems.

“I’m even thinking about writing a book... it’s totally do-able.”

She finds her voice and blurts out, “You should totally write a book! I’ll set you up with my publisher. You’ll love her. Although she hasn’t been returning my calls lately... ”

He looks at her seriously, steadily, “Leslie, I know this doesn’t exactly get us to a quiet life where we get to have dinner together every night. But I can be home with you, we’d get to be together, at least most of the time, even if I'm at the state level--”

He doesn’t get to finish his thought, because she’s launched herself at him, kissing him hard and long. Home.

“You were saying?” Her eyes are shining bright with tears.

His might be too. “And the other thing, there aren’t any rules against me being in the statehouse and you being on City Council. Nor against me being in the statehouse and you being mayor. Nor against you being governor and me being a Congressman. Nor against me being governor and you being a Senator.”

She laughs and sniffles a bit. “You checked.”

“I checked. Chris checked, too. As did a lawyer. We can just keep double-checking every time one of us makes a new move.”

“You did your homework,” she says, beaming her approval.

“Yup. So there is no ethics issue. But, it’s going to be complicated. If an issue comes up where we disagree...”

“Which there will. Your positions on capital funding risk management are ridiculous, Ben, we’ll never get anything done if we need such huge contingencies! Sometimes we need to go ahead without everyone else signing onto projects -- the money will come from somewhere and in the meantime...” she trails off, collecting herself, and smiling a bit sheepishly.

He cocks an eyebrow to look sternly at her. “As I was saying, when an issue comes up where we disagree, it could get tricky.”

“Politically, or personally?”

“Well, both, maybe.”

She smiles at him. “See, I think just politically.”

He smiles back. “Why do you say that?”

“Because personally? Personally we’re going to be just fine.” She wraps her arms around his neck, decisively.

Just before he leans in to kiss her, he says, “Yeah. Yeah, we are.”

A minute later, she pulls back suddenly and exclaims, "Dammit! I forgot!"

He looks completely befuddled. "What?"

"Hang on..."

She's a genius, if she does say so herself. She jumps up and goes to her desk, rummaging in one of the drawers, to pull out a small wooden box. She comes back around, hands it to Ben triumphantly, and says, "This time I think you should open it yourself."

He does, and looks up at her with his head jerking forward a tiny bit in amazement, eyebrows raised. Aha. Got ya.

It takes him a moment. "When did you..."

She can't resist rocking back a bit on her heels with delight. "About a month after you got to DC. When you sounded so excited about that one event where you got to speak."

"Leslie..."

"I just wanted to be ready. I wasn't sure if you would go for it this soon, so I got a few made, see, you can just keep using them: Wyatt 2013, Wyatt 2014, Wyatt 2015..."

And then he starts kissing her again, wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her against him as he leans on her desk.

Who needs Joe Biden, anyhow?

fanfic, parks and recreation, leslie/ben, fan fiction, fiction

Previous post
Up