Harvey Specter was wearing jeans.
Granted, they were two-hundred dollar jeans from Neiman-Marcus that he'd worn a total of three times since Donna, who said wearing them would make him more "approachable" and had been appalled when he wore them as loungewear in his apartment, had insisted he buy them six years ago. But they were still made of denim.
If that wasn't indicative of his frayed mental state, he didn't know what was.
The thought flitted through his mind at an inopportune moment, as he was was already stepping off the elevator at Pear - ehm, Specter Litt. The name had finally changed on the wall, but his mind had yet to catch up. It had been otherwise occupied with memories of a certain redhead.
Images flashed in his head for the millionth time. Donna, perched on the window sill as he entered her office and then, she wasn't anymore. She was close, closer and her lips…
He shook his head. This was exactly what he came here to avoid. Donna was the reason Harvey had come into the office at 4:17 a.m., wearing jeans. He'd like to think he'd have the good sense not to wear jeans to work during the day, but he couldn't really be certain of anything after three nights of minimal sleep and excessive self-reflection mixed with alcohol. It was that dangerous cocktail that prompted his outing tonight.
Another day spent avoiding Donna, passing messages through Mike or Louis like they were third graders with a crush (or had sworn each other as enemies), had led to another night clutching a bottle of Macallan 18 - which, although it was always his drink of choice, just made him think of her even more. Instead of wrestling with his thoughts in his now-empty bed until the sun came up, Harvey had decided he'd try to find distraction here, maybe with the added bonus of getting some work done.
He wandered down the dim halls, making his way from memory and by the light of a million tiny skyscraper windows shining outside of the glass walls.
Around the corner, Donna's desk - or what used to be her desk, which now sat empty - came into view. Harvey felt a sharp twist in his stomach, even as his mouth tugged in a small smile. He was immensely proud of her, of the way she fought to get where she was now, but he missed her. Even before the events of the past week, before Paula, he had felt Donna slipping from his life. The panic that stirred in him (and his instinct to avoid it) was what likely pushed him toward his former therapist in the first place, but that was a beast to conquer another day.
A sigh escaped his lips. He missed the days when he could look up from his desk and see Donna sitting at hers. She could always sense his eyes on her and would smile back at him. Those silent hellos were his favorite pastime. Things seemed simpler then, even if it was just a carefully-executed act to keep the truth from surfacing. Now, a literal wall separated them during the day, a devastating reflection of the figurative one that had been building between them for months now.
Harvey's thoughts and his steps came to an abrupt halt.
Lost in the turmoil swirling inside his own head, he hadn't noticed the soft glow of light coming from Donna's side of their shared wall until he was at his own door. She was here. Had she heard him coming? Should he leave? Frozen at the thought of facing her without the distractions of the workday, Harvey did nothing. Blood rushed in his ears and he felt his pulse radiating all the way to his fingertips. This was ridiculous. He shouldn't be on the verge of a panic attack. It was Donna, for crying out loud.
Seemingly of their own free will, his feet carried him backward. From this new angle, Harvey could see into Donna's office. This is a new low, he thought, hoping that the shadows would conceal him, not to mention creepy. But it was as if his feet were anchored to the carpet and he couldn't look away if he tried. He just wanted a moment to observe, to watch her without the painfully awkward civility that had permeated their interactions in recent weeks. It had been too long since he'd truly seen her.
Donna had also opted for a casual look, which made sense given the time of this unplanned meeting, and she pulled it off much better than he did. While he'd paired his designer jeans with a dark grey Henley, a white undershirt and preppy loafers which were hardly "comfy", she wore black leggings, a dark purple tunic-length tee-shirt and a grey sweater with one of those big, turn-down collars that made it look half-blanket, half-sweater. Her bright red hair was pulled into a messy bun, something he had never seen before but judging by the way his heart flip-flopped in his chest, he wouldn't mind seeing again. She was beautiful and she actually looked comfortable, which probably spoke to her ability to loosen up that didn't come as naturally to him. Donna was sophisticated, but he had always admired (and even envied) her ability to be silly.
Something was off, though. There was a sluggishness to her movements, like a literal weight pressed down on her shoulders, as she turned toward the small personal printer in the corner. She stared down with her arms crossed tightly around her body as papers were fed through the machine. One shaky hand came up to swipe under her eye and Harvey nearly doubled over as a wave of pain washed over him.
She was crying.