Eventually she finds out that being around Harvey is like riding a bike. She only had to learn to do it once.
It's awkward at first. She's not sure they still fit together, she's afraid of getting hurt, she's worried she doesn't know how to do the motions anymore. They are tentative around each other, visibly limiting their interactions so that they can take things slow. Some days she has to hold back in order not to be overbearing - if she had it her way she'd stand guard by his door all day, watching him work, offering help, getting him coffee or copies, just breathing him in. Other days she forgets he's there and her cheeks burn when she runs into him at the front desk on her way home.
It's not simple. They have never been simple in any way, and she committed to respecting her own feelings and that's what she's trying to do, so when she feels frustrated or particularly nostalgic she gives in to it, either avoiding him or stopping by throughout the day for quick chats. He doesn't seem displeased by any of it, which she takes as encouragement to keep following her gut.
It doesn't take long for muscle memory to kick in, though. Her body and mind are too used to him, and even though the walls she put up around herself to get through the past years initially worked their purpose, keeping him one step away at first, it's surprisingly easy to tear them down and welcome him back in. Because the truth is, having him around comes naturally to her - it's the only reality she knew for most of her career, her adult life - and, in the end, she spent way too long not having him there against her will. She doesn't have it in her to prolong that situation any longer.
So she doesn't. She invites him out for lunch, or goes to his office once she's done to hear about his day and maybe have a quick drink. She doesn't want to overwhelm him but the more time she spends with him, the more time she wants to continue to spend with him. It's like him leaving left an empty space within her, a seat reserved for him alone, and she learned how to ignore that empty space and focus on the rest of herself but he still fits perfectly there, like he belongs, and she finds that she likes it that he does.
With time they slip easily and seamlessly back into their usual dynamic, joking around, plotting against Louis and Mike, teasing each other. She missed this so much her heart sings at every new pun. But she can see Harvey's changed as well, seemingly for the better, and the changes are welcome.
He starts opening up more, telling her about the friends he made in Chicago and funny things that happened over there. He tells her about some of his cases, the games he went to and how he even developed a slight appreciation for the Cubs.
He even starts going further back after a while. Telling her about spending time with his brother and mother during the holidays, then telling her about living in the suburbs. Then he gets close to when he left. He tells her about the first week away, then the first days, then the morning he left and the panic attack. It's never her asking, he tells her all that spontaneously, and it makes her immensely proud and immensely grateful, at the same time as her heart smashes into little pieces with every new bit of information.
The one thing she does ask is if he continued to have panic attacks. They'd never discussed the issue - she'd never even acknowledged to him that she knew about them - but he doesn't look surprised that she knows. He tells her no, sounds earnest when he says it was just that morning, that he felt anxious some other days but the panic never fully breached the surface.
Her throat constricts a little at the fact that once again he'd been suffering and struggling and she didn't know. She could have been there for him, helped him carry the load or talked him off the proverbial ledge. Maybe that would have stopped him from leaving like he did. It kills her that she wasn't there when he first started getting them, and she wasn't there again when he had another one, years later, but it's out of her hands. The best she can do is promise herself to be there if it ever happens again.
She shares things about herself as well - her parents' anniversary cruise trip, that surprisingly big fight she had with Louis about getting a cat or not even though Lucy is allergic. She tells him about Lucy as well, and she can tell he feels bad for not being here when she was starting to grow up. The girl is still so young and has only recently entered a fun age, especially considering Harvey's nonexistent skills with babies and toddlers, but Donna wouldn't have missed her early years for the world and so she understands Harvey's regrets. She tries to alleviate them a bit by showing him pictures, telling him about birthday parties and afternoons at the park, and he soaks it all up.
It feels amazing to open up to him like this, possibly even more than they used to, and it feels like a privilege to have him open up just as much to her. Harvey may have matured, and nostalgia and miles may have softened him a little, but he's still reserved and discreet, even with their friends. The fact that he willingly shares so much with her tells Donna she has the same space in his life as he does in hers, and it's more than she could have hoped for.
She tries not to pry too much into subjects she thinks might be sensitive - his mother, the move, the disbarment - but eventually there is one subject he hasn't broached but she can no longer handle not knowing about.
So one night in his office, whiskey glasses in hand and a smooth jazz playing in the background, she asks him about his love life. She knows it's none of her business and she highly doubts Harvey would have invested in a long-distance relationship, which means he probably isn't seeing anyone right now. But the question nagged at her for days and she drove herself half mad debating whether to ask it or not and the alcohol provides some liquid courage.
She is almost ashamed at the amount of relief she feels when he tells her there was no one serious. That's a terrible friend move - five years is a long time and she wouldn't want him to be alone, and Harvey is obviously a grown man with needs - but she can't help the way her chest instantly feels lighter. She tries to hide it behind a quip about his womanizing ways and he makes her even more speechless when he looks deep into her eyes and tells her, in a way that really feels like he's telling her a lot more than just the words he's saying, that he isn't interested in one-night stands anymore.
She wants to ask him what he is interested in, but she doesn't know if it will sound like flirting or inquisition and she's terrified of upsetting the status quo. They need familiarity and stability after the rocky past of the last few years, and there's nothing more familiar and stable to their relationship than double entendre and hidden meanings. For once, she doesn't fight it, welcoming the blurriness of their line as a good sign of their progress.
She hasn't really thought about Harvey like that in a while, because losing him as just a friend and colleague and everything he was was already too much to bear without adding love to the mix. She refused to even entertain the idea despite its very obvious influence in her breakup with Thomas, probably as a defense mechanism, and she's still wary of opening that door again after everything.
She still volunteers information about her own love life, though. She doesn't know why she does it - there's a part of her that feels like he shared his, so he has a right to know about hers; another part of her thinks she'd have been bothered if he'd told her there was someone in his life, and she wants to give him the same reassurance he gave her; and another part of her thinks there was some other ulterior motive she's not ready to examine.
"Yeah, I kind of know what you mean," she confesses, staring fixedly into her glass.
"You do?" she hears him ask, and tries not to think too much about the note of hope she thinks she heard in his voice.
"Yeah. I haven't had anything too serious either," she continues.
"So after Thomas...?" he goes on, voice cautious, and shakes his head a little, apparently indicating the rest of his question.
"It was just... a lot. With you gone and work and everything, I wasn't in the right space for it. And then no one really interesting came around, so...," she shrugs, trying to seem casual, to mask her never-ending list of failed relationships.
He fixes her with a look and nods. He hasn't had much more luck with his own romantic relationships and so he understands what she means more than she'd like, but it still feels comfortable to be understood. It feels comfortable to move with him in the same way they've always moved, and the obscurity and uncertainty she might have disliked before is not as unwelcome now.
She likes it. She likes everything about having him back, even the annoying little things, his flaws and stubbornness and arrogance, the occasional comments or quips that venture just an inch over the line with no follow-up. This is them. It's what they always had, and she has a newfound appreciation for it.
Things are how they always were, and that's exactly where she wants them.
.
.
It's still a process, learning how to be around everyone else again - and especially Donna, finding the right balance between appreciating her presence and feeling suffocated. His friends are intensely focused on making sure he feels welcomed back, and it makes him feel a bit coddled at times, especially on days where Donna stops by his office every hour to ask if he's okay.
He made friends in Chicago, more than he expected, but his move and the way he handled it made him even more closed off to the world. He's always done well on his own and felt comfortable being alone, and moving away from all his friends and everything he'd ever known for five whole years sure made him even better at it.
Still, even when she's slightly annoying or overbearing, just being near Donna feels completely beyond anything he experienced while he was away, and the only reason why he's not sweeping everything under the rug and snapping right back to before like an elastic band is because he's making a conscious effort not to. He wants to do this right. He used to jump at every opportunity to ignore feelings and big moments and hold on with everything he had to their perceived normal but he knows that only leads to trouble.
It was so tempting, the first few days in Boston, to bottle it all up and run from his emotions and just pretend he was fine and everything was normal. Thank God for his mother and her persistent fascination for soul-searching. He doesn't know where he'd be now if she hadn't forced a bit of her introspection on him. He still doesn't like it in the slightest, but it's at least been imprinted on him how essential it is to have an outlet for your feelings, and he's trying to live by that here. He doesn't always understand the frustration or the inadequacy or the anger, but he lets them flow and tries not to lash out.
He doesn't know how not to let her close, though. The few times he tried it took a piece of him. And so after the first couple of weeks acclimating to the new old job and the new old office and the new old feeling of being in this city he decides he's had enough space from her for a lifetime. And that's when he discovers something.
They may have implicitly agreed to take it slow, but his heart doesn't seem all that interested.
It pulls her in, draws his gaze to her whenever she's around, makes his ears ring when he hears her voice. He is stupidly, ridiculously, laughably smitten, in a way he never imagined he was capable of being, and every time he's made aware of it, all he can think is How could I not see this before?
He thinks back to all the times Mike tried to not-so-subtly hint at it, every time someone asked if there was something going on between him and Donna, all the ways his enemies tried to use it against him. He doesn't understand how he could miss something so obvious, how he managed to bury so artfully something that now beats in his chest like a second heartbeat, unavoidable and unforgettable.
He was slightly reluctant at first - what with this being a new experience for him, and his relationship with Donna hanging on such a delicate balance then, and Thomas being in the picture - to fully embrace the intensity of this, but it's part of him now. He loves Donna, with everything he has, and he may still be too good at hiding his feelings from the world but he can't pretend to himself this isn't true any more than he can stop breathing.
He doesn't know if she is on the same page, couldn't even begin to try decoding her feelings, especially in this context, so he takes it easy and tries not to be too blatant. He accepts her invitations and makes some of his own. They slowly reclaim their lunches and coffees and drinks after hours, and sometimes it's so exactly like it used to be that he almost forgets everything that's happened.
He starts sharing more about his life, his fears, his vulnerabilities. He figures it's a way to deepen their bond even more, giving parts of himself he'd never given anyone, not even her. He tells her about his panic attack when she asks, he tells her about his fear of not knowing what would happen and if he'd be okay, if he'd even make it to the other side. He doesn't share everything, because he's not ready and it's pointless anyway, water under the bridge, but Donna's always been the one person who knows him best and he wants to make that even more true, especially considering everything she missed.
She tells him about her life as well, about their friends and their favorite spots and her own. She tells him about Lucy and her family and her grievances with her top neighbors after they spent a full year renovating incredibly loudly. He soaks in every little detail, eager to know her every thought and dream and complaint and everything she laughed about this whole time. It's a lot, feeling like this, but he's been deprived of her for too long and he feels his brain trying to compensate.
She asks him, once, about his romantic track record while he was in Chicago. He considers lying one way or another, but decides not to.
"There were a few people here and there. Nothing serious," he sips his whiskey. He remembers all those times, how they were nice, how he made more of an effort in order to only sleep with women he was actually interested in or captivated by. How his heart remained Donna's through and through.
"A whole new city to explore and you're telling me Harvey Specter didn't try to close as many women as he could?" she smirks, and he struggles for a second to understand the intention behind her question, wondering if she's jealous or just joking. It doesn't matter, because his answer is the same.
"I'm not interested in that anymore," he tells her truthfully, and he doesn't mean to stare at her so intensely but it's stronger than him. She notices, stares back until the tension is too much and she blinks, lowering her gaze to her glass. It's the first time they come even close to flirting or insinuating everything, and he worries he went too far, even if his words sounded neutral enough to him.
His heart skips a beat when she tells him it's been pretty much the same for her.
He hadn't asked, figured he had no right to pry into that area of her life after her revelation about Thomas back at their first dinner. But she still told him, and when he prodded a little she added that it was a mix of unavailability and disinterest. He absolutely should not feel validated by that, but he... does. He's always wanted Donna to be happy, had vowed to himself a long time ago that he'd do anything in his power to make that happen, but there's something selfishly satisfying in hearing someone you're in love with can't be happy with anyone. It makes him wonder if she could be happy with him.
The thought doesn't leave his brain. It goes to sleep with him and wakes up with him, it runs through his brain during breakfast and his coffee breaks and whenever he is not 100% absorbed in his work, really.
What if she could be happy with him? What if she could feel for him, in any way, shape or form, the same thing he feels for her?
It's a concept so outlandish to him that he almost forgets that's how it is for every other couple in the world. He does know Donna and he have shared the same feelings - friendship, fraternal love, admiration, fondness. But the times when it occurred to him that she could feel something more, he just instantly denied the notion, desperately afraid of touching it even with a ten-foot pole.
It's been almost two decades' worth of him breaking her heart and letting her down. It's been her rule, and "It bothers me but it doesn't mean...", and "I didn't feel anything when I kissed you". It's been jealousy disguised as professional loyalty, for both of them, and it's been them walking away from each other pretending it's because of anything else other than the absolutely crushing weight of loving the other in silence - and making it look easy when it really feels like their heart is being torn off their chest.
She never fully told him any of that, but in his own dealings with his feelings he came to realize that some of the signs he saw in himself, he'd spotted on her first. But that's not the same as her being in love with him now. Lord knows he's given her more than enough reason to run for the hills, and Donna is the strongest, most balanced, determined and emotionally self-aware person he's ever met. Even if there were ever a time she may have wanted something more, surely she knows better than to wait for him by now.
He tries to convince himself that he needs to take what he can get. He tells himself he's already robbed her of too many chances at happiness, be it with him or other men, and the best thing he can do for her is to keep his distance and hope she finds someone who deserves her. He tries to focus on the fact that they're friends again, like they've always been, and that's what he spent this entire time hoping for. But he fails, miserably. Familiarity doesn't feel like comfort anymore, but like a prison sentence, keeping them chained to each other and to this maddening status quo, forever unable to move on. The prospect of being just friends, being what they've always been, suffocates him, covers the back of his neck in a thin sheet of sweat.
He has already lost her once, and, while he has no intention of doing it again, the difference is that now he knows he can survive it. He already did. And so the biggest, most ingrained excuse he'd held on to since he met her, the fallacy he built their entire relationship on, no longer feels as solid.
He may not know if she feels the same way. He may not think he deserves her, he may not know if this will work out, he may be screwed up beyond repair and this might be the biggest mistake he'll ever make, the final nail in the coffin of them. But the thought that maybe, just maybe, she could ever possibly feel a fraction of the same thing he does fills him with a hope so powerful it feels like the sun shining within him.
And so this thought solidifies his resolve. He's not going back to what he used to be, backtracking on his words or setting them up for failure. This time he's facing this head on. He has everything to lose, but he has even more to gain.