It had been one hell of a day, one hell of a week, really, and all Donna wanted to do was drown her feelings in a bottle of merlot and some trashy reality TV. Louis had filled her in on what happened at Harvey's hearing, and Harvey himself had called her, probably to tell her the same, but she couldn't bring herself to return his call. She was still angry at herself for putting him in that situation in the first place. Alex had told her she'd done it to try and get over Harvey, which she realized was true. And the more she thought about it, the more she understood that this wasn't the first time she'd done something like this, just the most pathetic. Pathetic because this time, the shockwaves wasn't just being felt by her.
She'd started sleeping with Stephen Huntley when it looked like Scottie might be back to stay, only to learn that he'd facilitated a murder. It'd taken more showers and bottles of wine than she could count for her to feel comfortable in her own skin after he'd been arrested. And when Harvey started to get serious with Paula, she'd sought out Mark and was literally one step away from becoming the other woman; all in an attempt to feel valued and desired by someone, when she was sure the one person she wanted to make her feel that way would never be able to.
Thomas had seen it, even asked her about it. And part of her was glad he did, because he made her realize that maybe she should just stop trying. Because now it wasn't just her that she was hurting; Harvey nearly lost his life's work, and Thomas never deserved to be caught in the crosshairs of their inability to handle their emotions. He was a good man and, in another world - one where Harvey hadn't sunk his teeth into her and never let go - he could have been the one. They hadn't officially broken up, but their conversation in her apartment earlier that day basically confirmed it. Harvey was it for her and knowing that they'd never be on the same page dropped her down to a rock bottom she wasn't sure she'd ever be able to climb out of.
She knew that if Rachel was still in New York, she'd be knocking on her door with a bottle of wine, ready to just let her collapse in her arms. She'd missed her friend in the months since she'd moved, but tonight she missed her so much it was causing her physical pain. She could call her, sure, but that would just make her miss her more. What she missed most was her by her side in moments like this. She wouldn't say anything, but her presence would be comfort enough, a reminder that she wasn't alone that, yeah the situation sucked, but there was someone else in her corner. Someone to dry her eyes and pour the wine and make her feel just a little bit less broken.
And then, out of nowhere, he was pounding on her door. She swung it open fearful that something was wrong, really wrong - that there had been a mistake at the hearing and he was losing his license after all, or that Hardman had found yet another way to come after them. But when she saw him standing in her doorway open and vulnerable, she read the expression on his face, and somehow, she just knew. He was here for her - not for her help or her comfort but simply for her. As he closed the distance between them and kissed her recklessly, she was blindsided in the best way possible. She couldn't believe just how wrong she'd been - she hated being wrong, but just this once, she was damn happy she was.
"You're so beautiful, do you know that?"
The sound of his raspy morning voice startled her slightly and pulled her from her thoughts. She had been so wrapped up replaying every moment of the past twelve hours in her mind that she hadn't heard him get out of the shower. Adjusting her position on the bed and pulling the duvet higher on her chest, she turned to face him, smiling as he walked toward her wearing nothing but his boxers and carrying two cups of coffee.
"Harvey," she breathed as he passed her a coffee and gave her lips a quick kiss, "I'm sweaty and sticky and my hair is a mess, I'd hardly call that beautiful," she joked as she smiled up at him over the rim of her mug.
"Donna, I mean it," he started as he sat down beside her on the bed, shifting slightly to get closer to her. "You're stunning, you always have been. Especially-," he breathed as he ran a hand up her bare arm, tilting his head to her ear and his voice lowering to a whisper, "-last night," he purred as he placed a trail of kisses from her earlobe, across and up her neck before finally finding her lips. Blindly, he took the cup of coffee out of her hand and placed it on her nightstand before laying her back down on her bed and positioning himself on top of her, casting the duvet to the side.
He deepened the kiss and used his knee to part her legs as her hands came up to wrap around his neck, pulling him closer to her. She felt him growing harder under the thin layer of his boxers and just as she was about to reach inside and grab ahold of him, she heard the unmistakable sound of her phone vibrating on her nightstand.
Groaning, she rolled away from him and reached for the offending object. She swung her legs over the side of the bed so that she was sitting, her back now towards him.
"It's Louis," she said as she stood, bending down to grab his dress shirt off the floor beside her bed and sliding into it. "He wants to know what the hell could be more important than being in the office early on today of all days," she read as she began to type a reply. Seeing that a snarky comment was forming on his lips, she pointed down to her phone, "his words, not mine," she added.
"But Donna," he said as he positioned himself on her bed, resting on his elbows, legs dangling over the side, spread apart slightly and showcasing the impressive bulge under his boxers, "what could you possibly have to do today that is more important than this?" he asked, winking at her suggestively.
"Harvey, you and I both know that if I'm not in the office soon, Louis is going to show up at my door, and is this really how you want him to see you?" she asked, gesturing to his boxers.
He rolled his eyes and hoisted himself off the bed so that he was standing in front of her. He snaked his arms around her waist and pressed his lower half into her slightly. "Good point, I think I'll save this just for you," he retorted as she turned around in his arms and slinked towards the shower.
Harvey had called Ray to bring him a new suit and as the pair slipped into the back of his Lexus, Donna and Ray exchanged a look. One that looked a lot like "finally," and that made Donna smile.
As they sped through the late morning traffic towards the firm though, reality started to set in. She didn't want to pop the bubble of pure bliss that she and Harvey had been floating in for the past twelve hours, but she knew they needed to talk. Not necessarily about what they meant to each other - they communicated that much with their eyes and their body language last night. But she wanted to know why now, what was it that made him show up at her door, and where they went from here.
And she needed to tell him that she hadn't broken up with Thomas yet. She didn't want to, because as far as she was concerned, she and Thomas were over the moment he left her apartment for the hearing, but she knew that things like that mattered to Harvey. If they were going to give this relationship a fighting chance, she needed to clear the air.
The car pulled up outside the firm as his hand that had been resting on her knee gave it a squeeze and her eyes met his. She brought her hand to rest on top of his own, her thumb idly tracing circles on his skin.
"Harvey," she breathed, shifting her gaze down to their intertwined hands, "do you think we can keep this between us? At least for a little bit?"
"Donna, I'm not going anywhere, if that's what you're worried about," he said, lifting her chin with his thumb and forefinger to bring her eyes level to his.
"No it's not that," she said, smiling at him, unable to ignore the way his words made her heart flutter slightly. "But with everything that's just happened - with Robert leaving - people's focus should be on that. Not," she paused, looking at him again for reassurance, "the gossip that this would inevitably start."
Harvey didn't say anything, but waited to make sure she was done. She was hardly ever tentative with her words, but when she was, he knew it meant she was nervous about what she was saying.
"Plus," she continued, shifting closer to him so she could whisper in his ear, "don't you think it'll be fun to keep this our little secret for a bit?"
Perking up at the thought of what Donna had just said he shifted his hand slightly higher up her thigh, smiling as he felt her quiver under his touch.
"Does that mean we can't sit together like this in meetings?"
"Harvey," she started, rolling her eyes at him.
"I can't kiss you in your office before taking you home for the night? No mid-afternoon sex in the file room?"
"Harvey," she said again, trying to feign annoyance, but unable to hide her amusement.
"Seriously, Donna," he said, moving to open the car door and help her out, "however you want to play this, I'm game."
"Thank you," she said, giving his hand a squeeze, "and I'm sure I can find some way to make it up to you at home," she finished with a sly smile.
"That's what I like to hear," he said as he gave her a wink and led her into the lobby of the building.
They rode the elevator up to the 50th floor hand in hand, both wanting to enjoy every last second of physical contact before spending most of the day apart. Harvey looked up as the numbers above the door ticked higher, and pulled her in for a kiss as they hit the 45th floor, releasing her just before the doors dinged open on the 50th. "One for the road," he whispered in her ear as they stepped out of the elevator and parted ways.
As Donna rounded the corner towards her office the hand that had just been clasped in Harvey's danced by her side, fingers twitching at the memory of his being intertwined with hers. As she entered her office, she was surprised to find Katrina there, looking out the window with her back towards her.
"Katrina," she said, the enthusiasm in her voice surprising even her, "what a pleasant surprise!"
"Donna," she said, moving from her place by the window to stand behind one of the chairs on the other side of her desk. "Sorry to ambush you like this - I stopped by earlier this morning but Elaine said you had a dentist appointment."
"Oh yeah," she paused, setting her bag and coat down on her chair, "root canal - thing," she said, pointing to her mouth and making a mental note to thank her secretary for always covering for her, no questions asked.
"Wait," Katrina said, her voice shifting to a tone of slight concern, "Donna, what happened to her neck?"
As soon as she spoke, Donna's hand shot up to cover the mark on the right side of her neck she'd found that morning - a sign of Harvey marking his territory the night before. "Oh," moving her hair over her shoulder to cover the mark, "I burned myself on my curling iron this morning," she said, hoping that that'd be the end of the interrogation.
"Your hair is straight," Katrina deadpanned.
Unwilling to let herself get frazzled, Donna plopped down in her chair and shifted her eyes to meet Katrina's gaze, eyes wide and a small smirk spread across her face.
"Katrina," she said, cocking her head to the side slightly, "what can I do for you?"
"I just wanted to make sure you're ok, after everything that happened this week," she said, her voice softening as she sat down.
"I appreciate that," she said smiling at the woman sitting across from her - someone that she'd come to consider a friend over the past several months. "It's been a long week, but I think I'm going to be ok."
"And things with Thomas are -?" she asked, leaving the question open-ended and hoping Donna would fill in the blanks.
"Over," Donna said with a sigh, but Katrina didn't miss the small smile that lingered on her face. "Well, not technically - but I'm going to take care of that today."
"And you're ok with that?"
"I am," Donna said quickly, "we went too far too fast, it was never going to last," she finished, using her hand to emphasize how dismissive she was about the whole relationship.
"Well, if you're sure," Katrina said with a smirk as she stood to leave.
"I am,' Donna said with a reassuring smile. "And thanks Katrina, you're a good friend."
Harvey had spent the past three hours fielding calls from his top clients and assuring them that despite Robert's sudden departure, the caliber of care they'd come to expect from the firm wouldn't change. Harvey was attentive to each call, but his eyes were trained down the hall outside his office, hoping to catch a glimpse of Donna as she flitted across the firm from one meeting to another. It was ridiculous, he knew, but he missed her. Given the proximity they'd shared the previous night and that morning, Harvey hated how far away she felt now.
As he wrapped up a call, he heard the faint sound of knuckles tapping on glass and looked up to see Samantha leaning against his open door frame, arms crossed and head tilted to one side, her face bearing a dissatisfied expression.
"Samantha," he said, nodding for her to enter.
"I just want to make sure you're ok," she said, unable to hide the disdain in her voice, "you know, after you ran out of here last night like the building was burning to the ground, and this morning when you showed up an hour and a half late?"
"You know it's been a long week, Samantha," he said, trying to brush her off and avoid a conversation he really didn't want to have.
"I am well aware of that Harvey," she said, leaning forward towards him and placing her palms on the edge of his desk. "A long week that started with all of us cleaning up a mess you made and one that ended with my mentor getting his name torn off that wall in disgrace."
"Samantha," he said, feigning nonchalance and leaning back in his chair, "we're going to be fine. I just talked to all my clients, and Louis has spent the whole morning doing the same. No one is leaving us. I'm sorry about Robert, I really am, but I think it's in everyone's best interest to look towards the future."
"You're an asshole Harvey," she said, turing to leave. "Do a better job of pretending you're not happy that your name comes first again."
Several hours later and too distracted by the thoughts of Donna that kept entering his mind, he found himself on his way to her office two cups of coffee in hand. He paused when he reached her door and smiled at what he saw. She was bent over a stack of papers, brow slightly furrowed in concentration and multi colored bic pen tapping furiously against the surface of her desk. The tapping was a tell tale sign that she'd had too much caffeine, but still he approached with arm outstretched, offering her another cup.
"I thought you could use this," he said as he perched himself on the corner of her desk, their fingers brushing slightly as he passed her the cup. "I heard you were up pretty late last night."
"I was," she said with a smirk as she took a sip of the coffee, the subtle hints of vanilla dancing across her tongue and reminding her of the coffees they'd shared that morning. "I'd tell you all about it, but I'm not sure it's office appropriate," she finished, stressing the last two words and raising her eyebrows at him - actions he understood as her way of reminding him of their conversation in the back of Ray's car that morning.
"Ok fine," he huffed. "How about I take you to dinner tonight and you tell me all about it. Maybe even make some plans for later tonight?" he propositioned as he shifted his body closer to hers, his calf brushing the bare skin of her thigh slightly.
"Oh wow, a real date with Harvey Specter?" she mused, pretending to ponder the offer, "I hope he pulls out all the stops," she said with a smile.
"Oh, he will," he said, a grin reaching all the way to the corner of his eyes spreading across his face, which made her laugh and shake her head slightly. She couldn't hide the slight flush that rose in her cheeks, which only made Harvey grin harder.
As Gretchen made her way back from the executive kitchen to Louis' office with his afternoon prunie, the sight she saw as she passed Donna's office made her stop dead in her tracks. She was used to seeing her and Harvey engaged in private and hushed conversations, but she'd never seen him sitting on the edge of her desk, positioned so close to her. Resting on the window ledge or perched on the arm of one of the chairs in her office, all the time, but this setup was new. Something was different between the pair.
She continued to ponder the new arrangement and was soon joined by Samantha and Katrina, who had just finished a deposition in the conference room next door. "I wonder what they're talking about," Gretchen said, looking between the two women to see if they had anything to offer.
Katrina paused for a second, thinking back to her conversation with Donna that morning. "Samantha, when you saw Harvey this morning did he seem -"
"Far too happy for someone who just let a friend fall on a sword that wasn't even his to save his reckless ass?" Samantha said, cutting her off before she could finish.
Katrina shot her a sideways glance before speaking again, surprised by her bluntness, "I was going to say bouncy, but yeah I guess that works too."
"They sure do look cozy in there," Gretchen said, drawing the trio's attention back to Harvey and Donna.
"Huh," Katrina breathed, understanding where Gretchen was going. "I did see a mark on Donna's neck this morning. She said it was a burn, but -"
"And I swear Harvey had some lipstick in the corner of his mouth," Samantha admitted, picking up where Katrina had left off.
"About damn time," Gretchen said, unable to hide the grin that spread across her face as she looked back at the couple fifteen years in the making, oblivious to the three of them watching from the other side of the glass.
"How long until they tell people you think?" Katrina asked.
"They keep this up," Gretchen started, gesturing to the pair, "the whole firm will have figured it out by the end of the day tomorrow," she finished with a smirk before turning and sauntering towards Louis' office.
"Del Posto?" she asked, looking up at him as the car slowed to a stop outside the restaurant.
"Well," he started, offering his hand to her as she climbed out of the car, "we've always come here to celebrate you coming to my desk, so I thought it'd be the perfect place to celebrate me coming to your door," he explained.
"Oh, you came alright," she joked, shooting him a coy smile.
"Donna," he gasped, raising a hand to his chest in mock horror, "this is a classy establishment. You wouldn't want someone to overhear and misunderstand -"
"Misunderstand what?" she asked, cutting him off and taking a step closer to him, "that you're into me?"
"Something like that," he said with a laugh as his hand came to rest on the small of her back, guiding her inside.
They were halfway through the main course before Donna mustered up the courage to bring up the thing that'd been eating away at the back of her mind all day.
"Harvey," she started, taking a deep breath, "I need to tell you something."
Not taking too long to study his confused expression because she didn't want to talk herself out of saying what she knew needed to be said, she continued.
"When you came over last night, well, technically, Thomas and I were still together. It doesn't matter to me, because we'd had a conversation earlier in the day and in my mind, things ended then, but we didn't formalize it until today. And I'm sorry, I should have told you sooner. I know this kind of thing matters to you," she finished with a deep breath, not realizing how fast she'd been talking until she'd finished.
"Donna, stop," he breathed, reaching across the table and grabbing hold of her hand that had absentmindedly started to play with the stem of her wine glass. "I don't care," he said matter of factly.
"You don't?"
"When I was on my way over last night, I didn't know what I was going to say or do, I just knew I needed to see you. And when you opened your door looking at me the way you did, I just had to kiss you," he said, smiling as she glanced down to try and hide the elated expression spreading across her face. "If Thomas had come around the corner seconds later, I probably wouldn't have stopped. In fact," he said, pausing for emphasis, "I probably would have kissed you harder," he finished with a smile and a squeeze to her hand.
"And what made you come over?" she asked, wanting to know where his head had been the night before, if nothing else because she was curious about what finally brought them together.
"Robert, Alex, and Samantha all said things last night that made me think of you," he explained, "but really, it was the fact that you weren't at the hearing. I was sitting there, with my fate hanging in the balance, and all I could think about was how you weren't there. I knew I'd have survived losing my license, but as I sat there, I realized that I probably wouldn't have been able to survive you not being there if it happened."
"Harvey, I'm so sorry," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Donna -"
"For the hearing, Hardman, the whole ordeal, really," she continued, speaking over him, "I should have been there."
"You're here now," he said, reassuring her with a smile and the softness of his eyes.
"Can you at least let me feel a little bad about it?" she asked sheepishly.
"Actually no," he started, smiling at the confused expression on her face, "because in a twisted way, everything worked out the way it was supposed to. We probably wouldn't be sitting here if you hadn't done what you did."
"Well in that case," she said, leaning forward slightly and moving her foot under the table to tap his calf, "you're welcome."
"So," he said, as the waitress cleared their dinner plates and set their dessert in front of them - a tiramisu to share even though Harvey knew that Donna would finish most of it.
"So," she echoed.
"This is it right?" he asked, "we're together now?"
"Yes, Harvey, we're together," she replied with a smile, easing the fears that she knew had likely started to bubble up inside him.
"I love you," he said simply, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, because after everything, it kind of was.
"I love you, too," she replied, her tone echoing his, both of them unable to hide the huge grins spread across their faces.
"Good."
"Good."
They were hand in hand as they left the restaurant, both filled with anticipation at the thought of being wrapped up in the other's arms as soon as they were home. As they made their way to Ray's waiting car, Harvey heard Donna suck in a small gasp and felt her hand slip from his. Just as he was about to ask her what was wrong, he heard a familiar voice calling out his name.
"Harvey! Donna!," the voice called out, and he turned to see Louis and Sheila bounding over to them.
"Louis," he choked out as both he and Donna took a small step apart, hoping he hadn't seen them just seconds before, "what are you doing here?"
"Well," Louis started, "Donna is always raving about this place, so I thought we'd check it out."
"Raving?" Harvey a smile, glancing towards Donna.
"It's a special place," she said simply, shooting him a knowing smile.
"Well, we better go," Sheila interjected, "we don't want to miss our reservation! Nice to see you both," she added as Louis guided her inside.
Once Harvey and Donna were out of earshot, Louis turned to her.
"Did you -," he started.
"See that they were holding hands before they spotted us?" she added, finishing his thought.
He didn't respond right away, just smiled at the thought of two of his best friends finally allowing themselves to be happy.
"Are you going to say anything to them?" she asked.
"No," he decided, "they'll tell me when they're ready."
"About time, right?"
"About damn time is right."