The paper in Donna's fingers represents pride along with profound loss. Mike and Rachel are really leaving. Their resignations hand delivered because Rachel needed to break the news face to face.
She understands. Of course they couldn't turn down joint positions with the Innocence Network in Los Angeles. A chance for a cause is where their hearts always were. Their passion for philanthropy is probably part of why they connected so well.
Yet that didn't change the fact that the news carves deeper into the chasm of emptiness that's been residing in her heart.
A tempo of familiar knocks begin at her door.
Harvey. He'd heard.
She goes to answer, paper folded in hand, pulling it open to view the face she'd met on the other side so many times before, only this time with a far more troubled man residing.
"Mike told you?" she asks.
He nods. "Rachel?"
"Yeah."
They stand in silence for a long while, the five words they'd spoken feeling like more than they'd said outside of firm business in weeks. His chest rises and falls in what seems like labor, him being wound so tightly and tensely she knows it's taking every ounce of his strength not to fall apart.
"Are you going to be okay?" she asks.
"The firm's losing every direction we turn. And without Mike…" He swallows, the throb in his temple extra pronounced.
In spite of everything, seeing him in front of her needing comfort as much as she does is almost too much to resist. Without thought her hand reaches toward him the slightest. She stops herself, but not before his eyes lock in on the gesture.
He stares at the ground, his face suddenly turned away. "I don't know why I came here. I'm sorry."
This is all wrong.
He starts to leave.
"Do you want to come in?" she asks in a rush before she can talk herself out of it.
His head swings back and the look on his face startles her. Something between mourning and hope. He doesn't respond, an almost fidget in his stance.
"You came here for a reason, Harvey."
He shifts his eyes, a slight glassy appearance to them before he begins following her in. He shuts the door and they stop in her entryway, so much turmoil behind the mask he's trying to hold in place. Almost like if they take any further steps he won't have the energy not to collapse.
"Harvey-"
"I don't know how to fix this," he blurts out with a cross of shame and frustration, hands flapping at his sides.
She bites the inside of her cheek, for it's one of the first times in her life she doesn't know the right move to lead the man she's been estranged from either. She begins gently. "I don't think there's any way to change their minds."
"Not that." He growls out. "This." He motions his hand between them. "I'm losing everything that meant something to me, Donna. Jessica, the firm's name having any respect. And now Mike and Rachel."
"You'll get the respect of the firm back."
"You're missing what I'm trying to say."
She shrugs, a lump causing ache in her throat because she's close to him but mentally they're still far apart. She shakes her head, not guessing. She doesn't assume anything with him anymore.
He presses his lips in a line. "I'm trying to say us." He's watching her then, waiting for her to help him out but he's already drained her dry.
"I know I've made a mess of this. I've been afraid."
"It felt like anger," she says, numbing her words of emotion.
"Which was about being afraid of what feeling something for you meant for us. But one things is certain to me now. Even with all the rest we've got going on..."
She waits, reminding herself to breathe.
"The firm will never be anything to me without you."
She tries to hold back the tremble in her lower lip, blinking back the tears that have formed. He'd hurt her, made her doubt her own judgment and needs. He'd excluded her, accused her, and taken the part of her soul she'd left too casually at the toes of his oxfords. She wasn't the kind of woman to allow that from someone. This shouldn't be easy for him, maybe not even possible at all.
"You hurt me, Harvey. I know what I did started it, but you did far more intentional damage."
He glances up, his eyes filled. "Goddammit I know that, Donna." His chin drops down, staring somewhere on her rug. "I know I've screwed us up beyond repair."
Anguish oozes from his demeanor, mirroring the tornado of torment residing inside herself. The flush of blood rushing under his skin, the fists balled tightly at his sides, the waiver of his steel jaw, and the tension so strained in his shoulders she wonders how long it's been since he'd allowed it to settle. Their battles had left her without anything more to say unless she jumped back in the revolving accusatory war between them.
The desire to fight suddenly doesn't matter anymore. She just craves comfort in him, and to offer him comfort from within herself.
Rachel had said it before she left earlier. Happiness doesn't come without forgiveness and sacrifice, and if anyone deserves a payoff after everything it's herself.
She takes a small step forward.
He straightens.
Then she takes another.
His hands raise to brush lightly at her sides, tentatively, resting right along her hips. She goes in, wrapping her arms around his neck, feeling like she can suddenly release everything held back because the strength of her against him gives her the ability to stand more upright. Hands slide up her back, pausing low at first before his face turns into her hair and he envelops her fully. He seems to regain energy from her as well, the fallen man he'd come in as engulfing them together, leaning toward their newfound oasis between each others arms.
Being close again feels like a harbor they've both spent years searching for, circling in inverse directions. She can't live with going back, because feeling him so close sends her resolve floating away, like a feather caught up in the breeze that settles them with just each others touch.
His lips brush her neck and she stills, not completely pulling away but creating enough space to read him. He's frowning, brow pulled in and apology written in all his creases. His eyes trace her face and stop at her lips. He swallows.
She'd sworn she'd never kiss him first again. But something tells her he's hurting too much to believe it's possible unless she yields.
His fingers draw her toward him, angling his head just the slightest. The pull inside is more than she can stop. Her left hand caresses his neck, fingers tickling his hairline while her lips press to his.
He's hesitant at first, accepting without pushing her. They breathe each other in, letting years worth of tension arrive to the conclusion it's time to come together in order to dissipate.
Then he's pulling her flush, mouth waking up and alive as if the realization is finally complete. He's wrapping arms around her and drawing them together, mouth and tongue searching while the need he's been denying that's existed for more years than they have fingers takes over his doubt. A hand cradles behind her head, his body suddenly pressing her backwards until her spine meets the wall. His lips part from hers.
"I've been so stupid. I'm so sorry," he offers with a guilty crack in his voice. His lips are on hers again, tongues joining, while his hips rock, leaving a building ache that becomes almost painful in its need for release.
"You have," she finally says between kisses. "But is that really surprising?" she teases.
His lips seal against her pulse point and she whimpers. He pulls his head back a breath. "Only because its been keeping us from this."
Warmth fills her, sets her pulse ablaze and her core like lava. She wants nothing more than to let him provide the fuel. Except, she needs more from him. "Harvey." She tenses, and in a short time it registers.
"You want to stop."
"No."
He reads her face, frowning, breath panting. She smooths fingers over the lines on his forehead and in his hair, attempting to center him for the panic she sees building. "I need more. I need to know you're not going to go running as soon as this gets too close."
He opens his mouth, then swallows, setting his eyes somewhere far before he looks back to her with certainty. "People have always said your life revolved around mine." He pauses, frowning again. "And it may not look like it, but my life is all about you too. I can't-" his voice breaks. "I can't function without you, Donna. You've been helping everything in my life run smoother but the truth is? You've made my head run smoother too. I just never knew how to tell you, and maybe myself...what that meant."
This is her more she had asked for, but it's like a giant boulder rolling her direction and she's too afraid to run alongside its path. She can't handle what it brings fully, doesn't know how to accept it with anything except a detour. "You know they have therapy for that." His jaw clenches at her words, and she knows the jab is soon but she can't help but say it.
"You'll be happy to know I'm seeing a new therapist. A male, for the record. Louis referred me."
"You think that doesn't make me feel threatened? People speculate about you and Mike you know."
"Donna."
She bites her lip.
"I love you. I've felt it maybe from the first week I met you. I've tried to reason it, move on from it, and deny it, all while keeping you fifteen feet from me for the better part of thirteen years. You leave a hole the size of Manhattan in my life every time you leave me."
"Queens is bigger, if you're wanting to be impressive."
"Do you want to deflect or hear this?"
She tilts her head.
"I don't want to fill my life with anything else anymore. Nothing else fits but you."
Tears slip down her face, and he brushes them away with the pad of his thumb. "Why do you have to be so goddamn good at this?"
"Well, they don't call me the best goddamn closer-"
"Don't say it."
He plasters his face with a grin, and she feels the corners of it hit somewhere low.
His face turns serious again when she doesn't respond right away. "So, Donna?" He waits, the implication of the unidentified question hanging between them.
"You already know I always forgive you."
He tucks back hair from her face. "Can we continue where we left off, then?"
"No."
His shoulders fall.
"Not until I say something first."
He nods, shy but expectant.
"You know you're the most infuriatingly huge pain in my ass."
He darts his eyes upward. "Can you just accept this without all the sass?"
She places a flat palm on his tie, then begins a methodical process of pulling it loose. "No, because my sass is a turn on for you."
"Is it."
Her other hand grips his resurrecting groin as confirmation.
"Point taken," he grinds out.
"You need to promise me you're not going to shut me out when you're in crisis anymore, and if you feel you're doing it, you come to me with that arrogant, petty tail between your legs and cock your head in disgruntlement."
"I don't-"
"Please."
"Fine."
When his tie is free, she begins purposeful work on his buttons. His jaw drops a hair, breath picking up just the slightest while he reads her face.
"Because you were right, Harvey." She pauses when his shirt is fully open, lips parted and taking in how close she is to fully jumping in to what she's been protecting herself from the moment he smirked at her. "We both need each other." She pulls in and lets out a deep breath. "I'm never as lonely as when I'm without you, and never as fulfilled as when I'm not."
"I'm hoping I'm reading that double negative correctly."
She sighs, blinking back a fresh pool of tears. "I'm trying to say I love you, Harvey. And I have every reason not to give in to it, except that I've never wanted anything more than I want to be with you."
His hands cup her face and he kisses her fully this time, without hesitation or worry. Their path continues undressing clothing and reservations, leading them back to the familiar place where they'd done the same many years before.
When they sink into her bed the realization hits her. Maybe in order to finally find each other, they had to completely lose each other.
A/N's: I started writing this before the premiere with intention of finishing but couldn't quite get there, so the direction of this got out of sync with the show. Hopefully you still enjoy it. Thanks so much for reading, and review if you feel inclined.