PART FOUR
As she reaches the building, she does not even wait for the elevator. She takes the stairs to the second floor.
All she prays for, is him to be safe and in one piece. Her urgency to see him is rabid. She needs to see him. Desperately.
On reaching the landing of the second floor, she does not stop to catch her breath as she rushes towards the end of the corridor.
And there he is.
Slouched outside the door of apartment 206.
It is as if her body has been on fire all this while, and the sight of him feels like someone doused her with a bucket of ice water relieving the pain.
He is sitting with his head between his knees, hands at the back of his neck, wearing a t-shirt and sweats.
She likes it when he is dressed in casuals. It somehow makes her feel closer to him, as the professional gap created by suits and ties no longer exists.
"Harvey, what in the goddamn world were you-" she starts but is not able to finish her sentence.
Because he has stumbled onto his feet the moment he hears his name being called out by her voice, and is walking towards her in long strides before she goes off on him, as he knows she would, and kisses her.
As his lips meet hers, soft and supple, he feels a lightning bolt flash through his body. He is holding her waist, inching her closer to himself, each passing second.
She doesn't pull away. And that, he thinks is the biggest victory he has ever achieved. The elation that consumes his now, is greater than any amount of happiness he has ever felt on winning even the biggest of cases, in his fifteen year old career as an attorney.
Donna is surprised at her immobility, as pulling herself away from Harvey, sexually, comes as a reflex to her. But she doesn't want to pull back. Not today. And she slowly raises her arms, one hand in his hair, the other on his neck. She senses her body has lit up with a burning she had been suppressing since god knows how many years.
She is pushing him towards the door feverishly, when Harvey stops her.
"Wait, not this way.
We've kept this at bay for years. If we have to give it a chance, it has to be done in the right manner." Harvey reasons.
Donna nods, taking out the keys to her home. While she opens the door, she marvels at how Harvey is the one being rational today and she has let her guard down for the first time in a long long while.
As they move indoors, Harvey takes Donna by the hand gently and leads her towards the couch.
Donna has regained her usual composure, and feels slightly embarrassed at being so hasty. He draws in a breath and begins talking before she can ask all that had been going on in her head since this morning and about what happened seconds ago.
"You might be having lot of questions and reprimands to throw at me, and I am hoping to answer most of them to your satisfaction. But before that, I want to tell you, I am sorry for keeping you hanging and worried throughout the day." Her hand is still in his, as he softly caresses the back of her hand with his thumb.
All that she wanted to say to him, how frantic she had been, so close to going insane for being worried sick, she decides to save it for later. Or maybe spare him from all of it after all, because Harvey being upfront, expressive and so open with her is a first, and she does not want to let anything make him go back to his distant and reserved self.
She squeezes his hand as response to his apology being accepted.
Harvey smiles at the gesture and begins.
"I'm guessing the first thing you'd want to know is where is this suddenly coming from. If I were to be very honest, I had a dream. More like a nightmare, where you said you were leaving me. And as much as I tried to douse my racing heartbeat as I woke up with alcohol, the anxiety wouldn't go away. Now I know it seems very shallow and anticlimactic that all this came from a nightmare. But you know what I realised Donna? I have been living in a nightmare for thirteen years, away from you."
Harvey feels slightly dazed as he says these words he'd never thought he'd say, especially to her. In normal circumstances, he would have felt repulsed at even hearing such cheesy lines in a movie. But today hasn't been an exactly normal day anyway.
What Donna is feeling right now is the magnified version of what a high school teen feels on being noticed by her crush. Only difference being, this is not high school, and he is way more than a crush. She flushes at such juvenile thought of hers, but she certainly experiences a deep sense of elation, that she is trying her best to hide from showing on her face.
"I appreciate your honesty Harvey, more than you can imagine. But … I have to ask, does the ache of Mike leaving play any part in this? Because you've expressed earlier how you feel when those who are family to you leave, and if you think I would ever make that mistake again then I want to assure you with every ounce of assurance I can give you - it will never happen. So if you're doing all this just to keep me from leaving y-"
"No, Donna, that is not it." he cuts her off.
"Forget about a dream, I have experienced you being away from me, in real life, more than once. And you know how it ended for me the last time. Those panic attacks were not enough to make me realise how far my head was stuck up in my ass. I have been a fool Donna, denying any feelings I had for you, every time."
"Well I'm happy of the fact that you realised the part about being a fool and having your head stuck up in the ass, more than anything!" Donna chuckles, easing the tension she senses Harvey is facing, talking about emotions; his least comfortable topic.
"Seriously Donna?" he rolls his eyes, but cannot help letting out a tiny smirk.
That devastatingly suave smirk.
She looks at him, flashing her disarming smile, and places a hand on his knee.
"I have been a fool too Harvey." She admits, softly.
Harvey's eyes now possess a sparkle. Whether the sparkling is from the slight tears of overwhelming emotions or of just pure happiness, one cannot distinguish.
"And about Mike. This has got to do with more than his being there, than his leaving. I may have trained him to become the best lawyer there is, after me of course, but I must give it to the kid, he has a heart of gold. He taught me a few things here and there.
Don't tell him I said that though." He says, returning to his presumptuous self.
Donna feels an intense urge of being closer to him. Seeing this vulnerable side of him, it seems as if all her sorrows are melting away. She doesn't fight her urge, but inches nearer to him, and lays her head on his shoulder, hands still held.
Feeling her light head on his shoulder, he tilts her head onto hers and whispers -
"Donna, can I ask you something?"
"Mm-hmm?"
"How come…you didn't pull back today, you know…when I kissed you?" he asks shyly.
"Turns out I'm not the big know-it-all I claim to be." Comes the response.
"Rachel said something to me that truly spoke to me and remained with me, just like Mike must have told you, I'm assuming. Also, when I didn't hear from you the whole day, I experienced such a strong sense of despair, I felt as though my life had suddenly gone dark, until the moment I saw you outside my door.
And if all of this can happen in the span of twenty four hours, it only seemed wrong to pull away from something that was putting an end to my anguish.
It felt just right." She answers.
They sit in silence on the couch for a few moments, heads still resting on one another, letting every word they have said to each other in the past hour sink in, completely.
Harvey shifts to look at her, and they lock eyes. He slowly leans in to kiss her lips, bringing his hands on her cheeks. She entangles her arms around his neck and kisses back. Soft, but longing. He then gently lifts her up by both his hands and heads towards her room. None of the feverishness from before, just passion and a pure aura of love. They are at the bedroom door when Donna pulls back.
"What?" He asks.
"There's whipped cream in the kitchen." She teases.
He beams, broadly.
The same Cheshire Cat beam that she visualised vowing his life to her.
He is holding the same redhead he imagined, walking down the aisle towards him.
THE END.