Clarity

Just my take on the night of 8.16 for purely self indulgent reasons because I've never written about it before.


There's a thousand words running through his mind, questions and explanations and declarations and he has no idea what he's going to say as he slams his fist against her door. His heart is racing, lungs still trying to pull in air and then suddenly she's there, opening the door, and all the words fly away.

She's relief and home and startling clarity, the vision of everything he's ever going to want in life and he has no idea how to tell her that. How to say that he finally realises, that he's here and ready, that he hopes she feels the same, wants the same.

But she understands because she wouldn't be Donna if she didn't and she takes three steps back and pulls them both into the future.

It's urgency and ecstasy, fabric torn and buttons bursting free in their frantic quest for skin. They tumble onto her bed and she guides him inside her and stars literally dance in front of his eyes. It's fast and hard, both of them so out of their mind, burning with fourteen years of foreplay and lingering memory and she explodes around him with his name on her lips and he's never heard anything more exquisite in his life.

They lay tangled in each other's bodies, and he's still sheathed inside her, neither of them wanting to sever the connection. Her warm breath tickles across his cheeks, their noses brushing and lips whispering against each other.

She slides a hand through his hair, and it's a gesture she's done a hundred times before, caring and intimate and he thinks they've always been this. It just took them both far too long to realise it.

Her eyes find his in the dim light of the room, seemingly inquisitive and all knowing at once, like she's waiting for an explanation but already knows the answer.

"I looked around and you weren't there." He's not sure if that even makes sense, and he wonders if he should be giving some long eloquent speech about love and forever, but the truth is far more simple. She wasn't there and he doesn't ever want her to not be there.

"You were the only person I wanted to see. You're the only person I ever want to see and I thought I'd lost you."

She kisses him, forcefully and powerfully and it's all the answer he needs to his own unspoken questions. He explores her mouth, sucking on her lip and stroking her tongue with his, tasting her. Pulling back to track kisses across her cheek he realises it's too dark, a shadowy lack of light in the room. He's waited a lifetime for this moment and he wants to truly appreciate it.

He shifts, reaching for her bedside lamp and the action causes him to finally slip out of her. She whimpers from the loss. Flicking the switch golden light filters through the room, highlighting her milky white skin and making her hair gleam like fire against the white sheets. She's beyond beautiful.

"I want to see you," he whispers in explanation and she softens visibly at his words, emotion spilling out in her exhalation and he kisses her softly.

"Like what you see?" she chuckles quietly against his lips, such a perfectly Donna response that makes him grin.

"Oh you have no idea."

He steps his fingers lightly up her side and goosebumps appear in his wake and he likes that, likes seeing his visible effect on her. He travels to her nipple, circling his finger over the quickly hardening tip. Palming her breast, so soft and full in his hand, he takes her nipple in his mouth, soon mesmerised by the sounds she makes as he sucks and licks, sweet needy whimpers that feel almost overwhelming to be responsible for. He switches to her other breast and lavishes it with equal attention.

Donna's hands run over his body, brushing his neck and cheeks and tangling his hair and her touch feels incredible, so delicate and tender. She touches him in a way that makes him think she doesn't quite believe this is real and he can't blame her because he's half afraid he's about to wake up from a dream any second.

"Harvey," she groans and she tugs his face up, meeting his lips with her own and he understands. As much as he wants to explore her body further, wants to taste and touch every inch of her, what he craves most of all is the intimacy of being connected as one.

He covers her body with his, skin tingling at all the points where it presses against hers and it's almost sensory overload. He slides his erection through her folds and she's so slick, from their first round and with fresh need, bumping against her clit to make her groan before positioning himself at her entrance. Wanting to savour the moment this time he pushes in slow, keeping his eyes locked with hers as he feels her stretch around him. She feels like heaven and when he tugs her knee up and slides the final inches home, Donna's mouth dropping open in a low moan, he knows he's done for, for the rest of his life. He's never going back.

Her nails dig into his back as she arches herself into him, locking her ankles over his hips, pushing away every last breath of space between. He moves slowly, soaking in the feel of her body wrapped all around him, the silk of her skin and the taste of her lips and the heat of her centre tight around him.

His lips never leave her body, traversing her skin, teasing at all her favourite places that he remembers from that one night far too long ago, and he loves that he still remembers, that she still shivers when licks behind her ear and moans when he sucks on that spot under her chin. He loves that time hasn't diminished his intimate knowledge of her.

He's in no hurry to reach the peak, and he senses that Donna isn't either. It's not about climax this time around, it's about the connection, the intimacy, and he relishes in it while time feels like it stops moving. Gradually however the need begins to overcome them and he rocks harder into her, angling his pelvis to grind against her clit. She pants and whimpers and groans his name and then he feels her come apart and it's fucking glorious. He tips over the edge right along with her.

They're skin has cooled, breathing soothed and they lay in comfortable silence, hands brushing each other's bodies absentmindedly. They're both nowhere near sated yet, just allowing themselves time to recover. He's focused on a freckle on the top of her breast, one he's stared at far too many times during the work day and he feels almost giddy at the thought he can now reach out and touch it. Run his finger across it or taste it with his tongue.

"What's with the goofy face?" she suddenly asks him.

"I do not have a goofy face," he retorts, eyes still focused on the little golden disc on her chest as he tentatively presses his thumb to it.

"You really do," she teases him again and when he glances up at her face she's so bright and sparkly he thinks she has no right accusing him when she looks so downright gleeful herself. It's the relief he thinks, sheer happiness radiating out of both of them and he's grinning as he kisses the smirk off her face.

"You're just really here," he mumbles as he pulls back and there was another explanation bubbling on the tip of his tongue, a word he's never once uttered to any of the previous women in his life and yet here he is, hours in, almost setting it free already.

"You too," she breathes out in reply, wonderment colouring her tone.

He sets about proving just how here he is, replacing his thumb with his lips, gliding his tongue over her captivating freckle and the curve of her breast.

"Harvey," she hums and he feels it reverberate against his lips on her neck.

"You never would have lost me."

He explores her body fully this time, lips and tongue and fingers reacquainting themselves with every part of her. She comes on his mouth, loud and sharp with her fingers in his hair, before he guides her above him and watches in near reverence as she sinks down on him. Donna takes control this time, dictating the pace as she moves her hips and he follows her just like he plans to follow her forever.

She pulls him into the shower eventually, where they get dirty getting clean. They're unstoppable, like moths to a flame, as they cling to each other pulling pleasure and relief from their bodies, making up for so much lost time and pushing out all the ache of the past.

It's Donna's turn to rediscover, as she carefully washes his entire body, smoothing soap suds across his skin with a level of tenderness that makes his heart feel like bursting. Then she drops to her knees and takes him in her mouth and he worries his heart might explode for an entirely different reason. Watching himself slide between her lips is a level of erotic he's surprised he managed to stay upright for.

Clean and released once more they clamber back into bed, actually making their way beneath the bed sheets this time, skin still slightly damp as he gathers her to him, Donna's head resting on his chest. He strokes her hair and she draws patterns across his abdomen but he can almost feel her brain ticking.

"What happened today?" she whispers.

He gives her the broad brushstrokes of the day's events. The trial and Roberts sacrifice and how there's bound to be an avalanche of fallout to follow. He feels tremendous guilt over Robert, still can't quite understand what made the man give up everything to save him. But beyond that he can't seem to gather his usual enthusiasm to care about the rest. Work, the firm, that constant battle to hold power, it's instantly stopped being the most important thing in his life. It's been surpassed, and he knows exactly by what, or rather who.

"I'm sorry." Sorrow and regret leaks out of her voice, and there's a hitch in her breath.

"Donna, it's not your fault," he's quick to respond but her finger presses to his lips before he can say anymore. She shakes her head.

"It is. I never should have said anything about the deal. But you were wrong about it being because I didn't have faith. I've always had faith in you."

"I know." He does know, knows that she was likely just trying to break the binds tying them to each other in the same way he also tried unsuccessfully to do so in the past. A fruitless endeavour because this is exactly where they were always meant to be. "And it doesn't matter who's at fault, because look where it led us. We'll deal with the repercussions tomorrow but Donna, I wouldn't change a thing."

They quench need again and again and he's actually lost count of just how many times they joined their bodies, lost themselves to release and that's certainly a first. He rests above her and inside her, dawn peeking through her curtains and that four letter word tingles on the tip of his tongue once more, He's about to say it but she reads him in the way he says her name alone, tells him that she knows. He wonders if she really does, if she truly and fully understands what he was about to tell her. There's the faintest blush of hesitancy in her eyes and really she has every right to still hold some doubts and he vows to make sure to rid her of every last one of them, once she's ready to hear him.

She tells him they have to get some sleep, and he knows she's right, pleasant exhaustion quivering through every limb. But there's still that slight fear that it's all too good to be true. That she will disappear into dream and wishful thinking the second he closes his eyes. He shifts from her, only slightly, curling into her side and he can feel the warmth of her body and her silky hair on his cheek and he can smell her scent from the curve of her neck, familiar and yet so more potent this close and now intermingled with his own. She gives his hand a gentle squeeze with her own, and it's grounding and comforting and it's all he needs to know that this time it's all real. This time it's not a dream.

Everything's changed.

Finally.