Five Times Leslie Knope Fell In Love
The frost in the air bit her tongue as she inhaled.
This was it. This was it. She was standing outside City Hall, and this time she was stepping in with a lanyard around her neck that said Staff instead of Visitor.
She pulled her coat tighter around her neck and stepped onto the marbled floor of the entrance. She breathed in deeply and couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face.
The small heels on her black pumps clicked and echoed around the halls as she made her way to the Parks and Recreation Department, and her heart swelled. A nervous excitement settled in her chest and she was fairly sure this is what it felt like to fall in love with a place, a building.
It felt like home already.
She really suits her bangs.
It’s the first thought she thinks as the lady raises her hand. Her name is Ann Perkins. Her purple top really brings out the colour of her eyes. She’s a nurse - she’s incredibly pretty - and then something about an abandoned lot.
She wonders if she’s too cool to be friends with Leslie. Probably.
Ann asks for them to do something about a pit. The pit behind her house. And Leslie says she’ll do it.
She’d probably do anything for her, if she asked.
It took Leslie four months to fall in love with Dave. It took her four seconds to fall in love with the puppy he surprised her with.
“I saw it in the store and it reminded me of you.” Dave’s smile turned pained, “Not because you remind me of a dog, or anything. Because you’re, you know, human, and not…ah…”
“It’s okay, Dave. I love her.”
She held the tiny body in her hands and her eyes were as full as the moon outside. The puppy was small and her fur was mottled with chocolate brown and charcoal. She looked up at Leslie and blinked, and Leslie had never felt anything so warm in her hands before.
“What are you gonna name her?” Dave asked, perching on the sofa and watching Leslie on the floor.
Leslie smiled down at her little nose and floppy ears, and her heart melted.
Their breaths were mingling on her pillow; his smooth with sleep, hers full of wonder. There was a man - a naked man - in her bed, and his hair was a mess. He was tangled into her sheets and sleeping.
Leslie had gotten used to sharing her bed with him. It was only the third time, but he mapped out the left side perfectly. He was the oceans and the highways and the National Parks of her queen double, and she kept getting lost in his coordinates.
His eyebrows pulled together and his breaths became ruggard, and Leslie could feel the bad dream playing out behind his lids.
“Hey, Ben.” She whispered, her hand gently grazing his arm, “Ben, wake up.”
He opened his eyes as much as he could manage and drank her in. He took her hand off his shoulder and into his own, kissing it softly before returning back to sleep.
Her knuckles burned from his touch and she became over-whelmed with a sort of gratitude that she didn’t know how to place. She shuffled further under the duvet, letting her heart warm the spaces that the blanket couldn’t reach.
She was standing in front of the mirror, her shirt bunched up underneath her bra as her fingertips ran over the slight bump of her stomach.
It was some kind of trance. She couldn’t take her eyes off herself - off her swollen stomach. There were babies in there. Three of them. Three babies. Three.
She rotated, watching her reflection stay pregnant in every profile. Her fingers spread out across her skin as she smiled down at her belly. She was growing three babies all by herself. Her skin felt like it was glowing and beautiful.
And for the first time in her life, she really, truly fell in love with herself.
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