Chapter 6 - Clarity

Author's Notes: Thanks everyone for the feedback this story has been getting, and for the follows and the favorites, as well. Y'all seriously rock!

Hope you enjoy this chapter. We're hitting the final peak of angst (hopefully, unless my muse decides otherwise) here. Big thanks go again to Nathalie for putting up with my writing foibles, and for just being an all-round star.

Donna didn't know how long she had been kneeling on the floor, staring at the empty spot on the couch that Harvey had been sitting on. Pain had sliced through her when he'd walked away, rebuffing her touch, and for the second time in less than a month, she felt the sting of his rejection. But unlike the last time, she also felt the folly of her own actions.

She had been right to want to get some space from him; of that she was sure. But, had she really been that blind to the way Harvey had cared for her? She knew that she wasn't - deep down, she knew that he'd considered her the closest thing to family. And yet, in a matter of two weeks, she'd made him think that she didn't know him at all. In her determination to be loyal to Louis and to show Harvey that she'd moved on, she'd inadvertently turned into the very kind of person that she'd always tried to protect Harvey from.

Donna, if you wanted to move on, you chose the worst possible way to do it.

Rachel's words to her hit her differently now.

Going to work for Louis had seemed convenient in the light of her fallout with Harvey. They had common interests, which meant he'd be much easier to work with over someone who had no interest in the things she did outside the firm. Louis had also appreciated how much she had done for Harvey, and had let her know that.

He doesn't know how lucky he is to have you.

And fresh from the pain of Harvey's rejection, she had believed that. She'd forgotten that while Louis had been nice to her, it hadn't always been that way. Prior to that, she'd been only one of those things that he'd coveted from Harvey.

She'd known that Harvey would take badly to her leaving. She'd been prepared for it and he'd proved her right in those first few days. But, now, sitting here in his brother's living room, in the aftermath of his panic attack, she realized how much he'd set her apart from everyone else.

Donna is the one thing I can't give you.

You of all people should know by now, that to me, they're the same thing.

Anyone else loses faith in me, it doesn't matter. But with you, it's different.

You were about to go to prison and the very idea of having that happen to you broke me in two.

How had she managed to forget all of that?

Her own resentment had warped her own recollection of their relationship. Yes, she'd prioritized him over her own relationships and had put him first multiple times. But then, in his own way, so had he. She was the one person, she realized now, that'd he'd never counted on leaving.

But she had.

And it had broken him.

She wondered how she'd missed all the signs. They had been there, clear as day.

The way he'd looked when he'd pleaded with her to help him with something.

The way he hadn't met either hers or Louis' eyes when he'd asked for the list of secretaries.

Fresh tears bloomed in her eyes at the thought of him having to see her and Louis standing together, as a united front.

The way his eyes had shuttered after her cutting words to him, and the reason behind his absence after their fight.

Shit.

A painful realization dawned on her:

He'd come here to get away from her.

And she'd barged into his life again, and sent him spiralling into another panic attack.

She rose up from the floor, and moved towards the front porch of the house, pulling her phone from her bag. Rachel's message now made sense to her.

Donna, you should have told me you were going there.

Rachel had been trying to stop her from hurting Harvey even more.

After Marcus had left them, Harvey had sat there, the shame and ignominy of having lost it in front of Donna washing over him.

He had never wanted her to see him like that.

It wasn't her fault that he was unable to stand on his own two feet. Dr. Werner had made that clear to him. He needed to get a hold of himself, and figure out how to fend for himself without her.

But his mind clearly had other plans, and he'd instead made her feel the brunt of his issues.

She hadn't deserved that.

And then she'd reached out for him, and he'd seen the hurt and pity on her face, and he hadn't been able to bear it. He didn't feel equal to meeting her eyes, and so he had to get away from her.

He'd already hurt her enough. If he'd continued to sit there, he'd have done something idiotic. Like hug her. Or kiss her.

And she wouldn't have wanted that. Not from him.

So, he'd left. He made his way to his own room, and collapsed heavily on the bed, his mind still reeling from the onslaught of emotions.

He thought he'd given her everything he could, but it would never be enough. She deserved more than that.

Only that he didn't have more to give her. Not without exposing her to what he really was. He hurt the people who loved him. Crossing the line with Donna would have eventually hurt her. Far more than his own recent actions had. He was sure of that.

How could she not see that?

She'd seen him with other women. She knew that he couldn't make relationships work, and had called him out multiple times on it. With Zoe. With Scottie. They'd all left him because he didn't know how to love them without hurting them.

But with Donna? It was different. He couldn't hurt her. He never wanted to. He loved her, but he could never put a label on it the way he had with other women.

Yet, she'd still left him because he'd been trying to protect her from himself?

And more importantly, she didn't really want him like that. Not really. He knew; he'd asked her a few times.

I'm not in love with you, Harvey. I love you like a brother or a cousin.

We put it out of our minds and we never mention it again.

Oh, I'm not his girlfriend, I'm his Girl Friday.

And now she was in Boston, claiming she was here because she was his friend, after rejecting every attempt he'd made to get her back and going to work for a weasel who only ever saw her as a prize to be won.

He groaned. The woman was infuriating.

He was confused and baffled. Her actions made no sense to him.

He needed clarity, and there was only one person who could give him that.

He picked up his phone.

Since stepping into Marcus' house, Donna noticed that Louis had called her three more times. But, she couldn't truly bring herself to care at the moment. His own actions had been in part largely responsible for this mess with Harvey, and she knew that if she tried to talk to him now, she'd say something she'd truly regret.

Instead, her fingers hit the second number on her speed dial, and she waited for her friend to pick up.

"Donna? Thank god. I've been trying to reach you!"

"I know, Rachel. And I probably should have answered you." she choked.

"What?"

"I… I did something stupid, and I know you were trying to stop me from doing it. I realize that now," she brushed angrily away at the tears that were still streaming from her eyes.

"Donna, wait. What happened?"

"I thought something serious had happened with him. To his family. I honestly don't know what I thought. I just felt that he'd needed me and I just wanted to see him, and make sure he was okay. But instead I just made things worse, and I don't know what to do."

"Donna, slow down. Made things worse, how?"

"He had a panic attack, Rachel. One minute we were just yelling at each other and the next, he's on the floor, clutching his chest and fighting for his breath. I thought he was having a heart attack, and I…"

"Oh, my god. Is he alright now?"

Donna heard shuffling on the other line, as Mike's voice joined her friend's.

"What happened? Is Harvey alright?"

"Donna, I'm putting you on speaker, alright? Mike's here, too."

"Donna," Mike's voice was panicked. "Harvey?"

"He's fine, Mike. At least, I think he is. He came down from it; Marcus was there to help, and I just stood there feeling completely useless. I didn't know what was happening."

"I didn't either," he responded, quietly. "When it happened."

"He had one in front of you?" she asked, hoarsely.

"Yes. The day before yesterday."

The day he'd decided to leave, after she'd told him she wasn't ever coming back to him.

Donna closed her eyes, pushing against the rising bile in her stomach.

"I did this to him."

"Donna, no," Rachel's gentle voice rejoindered. "You didn't. Alright? He told us that. Yes, your leaving was a trigger, but it's not the reason for his panic attacks."

"She's right," Mike responded. "It's a combination of factors, and he couldn't deal with them safely here in the firm."

"You mean, where I was," she asked, voice pained.

There was a momentary silence on the other end, before Rachel said, "Well, honey, yes. Seeing you with Louis would have been a constant reminder of what he was struggling to accept, and so he had to get that distance. At least, that's what he told us his therapist had said."

"You mean him accepting that I'd never go back to him."

"Partly, yes," Mike said, "He was never going to force you to work for him, if you didn't want to, but he'd still been… hopeful you'd return to him, in due course. Your fight with him, however..."

"Made him lose that hope," Donna finished his sentence, her heart dropping a few further inches.

Rachel broke through, her voice laced with urgency, "Donna? You have to understand though, that it was a trigger. It wasn't you leaving him that had done it, but the fact that he hadn't processed it. At least, that's what he told us."

"But, the fight we just had? It had nothing to do with me leaving him, but about me leaving him for Louis."

She relayed every single thing that Harvey had said to her, in his anger.

"He said I was twisting a knife into him with every passing day," she finished, her voice breaking.

"Donna, that isn't news to you, though, is it? We talked about that," Rachel reminded her.

"And there's the stupid thing I did, Rachel," she said, her voice finally cracking. "I told him that I didn't think he cared as much for me as I did for him."

"Oh, no. Did you really?" Mike's shocked voice intercepted her. "Why would you say that?"

"It was stupid. I just… he'd been treating me so badly after I left and then I found out that he'd been paying me out of his own pocket, and I just couldn't correlate the two… And I thought he was threatening Louis and using me as a pawn in his game. I was just so confused and angry and I said some of the dumbest things I have ever said, thus far."

"Donna, I was with him through everything he'd done to make sure you wouldn't end up in prison. I've never seen him like that. And when he'd heard that I'd risked you, he nearly took my head off for it. He said you were different."

"It was more than that, Mike. I made him think that I've never really known him at all. And I don't blame him, because, god, I'd been so angry with him that I completely forgot everything that we'd been through together. And then, I had to go and make extra demands of him that he just isn't willing to give. It's not his fault that he doesn't love me the way I want him to."

She heard a mild cough on the other line - Mike, probably - and a low thwack, before Rachel's voice responded.

"To be fair, you've given him just as much, if not more, Donna. That makes you even. It didn't give him the right to treat you poorly," Rachel interceded, firmly. "You weren't wrong to leave."

"Rachel, you of all people know that relationships aren't zero-sum equations. Maybe I wasn't wrong to leave, but that didn't mean I had to keep hurting him after that. I allowed my own resentment to cloud my judgement, and I believed the worst of him from Louis. That's what hurt him so much. So, try and tell me again how I'm not responsible for his panic attacks."

"You're not," a quiet voice said behind her.

"Harvey." Dr. Elsie Werner's voice held a note of concern, over the line. "Is everything alright?"

He let out a wry laugh, "Not really. Here's a pickle, doc. What does one do when the reason they're asked to take a sabbatical shows up on their doorstep?"

"What?"

"Donna. She's here in Boston. We just had it out, and I let my mouth run away with me, and before I knew it…"

"You had another panic attack," the doctor sighed. "Are you feeling better now?"

"My hands aren't shaking and my heart isn't trying to jump out of my chest, if that's what you're asking. But other than that, no, I'm not feeling better. You told me that I needed to do this outside her 'influence'. How am I supposed to do that if she's here?"

"Well, you need to turn the situation around to..."

"I'm not gonna ask her to leave, if that's what you're suggesting." he interrupted, even as he vaguely recalled his own words to her.

Please go back to New York, Donna. You shouldn't be here.

Ugh, he was an idiot. She'd probably already left, and this conversation was likely moot.

"Harvey, I wasn't going to suggest that you kick her out. She did fly out all the way there for you. That on its own tells me that maybe your own perception of her actions aren't completely correct."

"What does that mean?"

"People don't just fly out to a different state for someone else if they didn't genuinely care about them. I don't need to tell you that, surely?"

"Maybe, but that doesn't mean… She said that she came here because she was worried about me. I didn't believe her. I couldn't."

"Why not? This is a woman who's stuck by you for twelve years, and by your own admission, is your best friend. Surely, it's not too much of a stretch to believe that she thinks the same about you?"

"And I told you you were wrong about that."

"Am I? You'll remember that I asked you why you weren't willing to try to work on your relationship outside of the firm. But, the point is you're unable to separate your relationship with her at work from your relationship outside of it, but she clearly is."

"She doesn't feel…"

"I wasn't talking specifically about a romantic relationship, Harvey. I just said a relationship - a friendship, if you will. She clearly was worried enough about you to hop on a plane - and likely abandoned her duties to her new boss to be there, I might add. To me, that says she still considers you her friend. Her best friend, even."

He stayed quiet.

"As for any other reasons why she's there, I told you that I cannot predict or pretend to understand Donna's motivations without actually talking to her. Her presence there does change things, but you can turn the situation around to your own advantage if you're ready to."

He felt his heart rate pick up, "What do you mean by other reasons?"

Dr. Werner sighed audibly, "Harvey."

"No."

"Yes. Listen to me, I tried to tell you this before. When I suggested the sabbatical, it was because I hoped that the distance from her and the firm would give you the time to sort through your own feelings for her outside your professional dependence on her."

"How am I supposed to figure this out, now that she's here?"

"Yes, she's there. As your friend. Not as someone who worked for you."

"What does that even... wait a minute. You expected this?"

"Expected what?"

"Her. Showing up here."

"No, I didn't exactly expect that she'd land on your doorstep in Boston. But, given everything you'd told me about her, I knew enough to suspect that your own absence would push her to act somehow. I'm guessing she tried to reach you multiple times over the phone."

"She did."

"And knowing you, you didn't obviously answer her calls. So, she did the next best thing." Harvey could swear he heard a satisfied note in his therapist's voice.

"And…?" his voice was full of apprehension and annoyance.

"And, now that you're both outside the confines of the firm, this is your chance to tackle your relationship with each other head on. This is a good thing, Harvey. One way or the other, it'll give you both something you truly need. Closure."

"But, if she doesn't feel the same…" he stopped, realizing what he'd just said.

"Hmmm." Dr. Werner's voice had taken on a curious lilt. "Doesn't feel the same as what?"

"You know what."

"You have to at least say it, Harvey. It's why we're doing this, in the first place, aren't we? Accepting how you feel and how she feels is the only way you're going to find peace."

He took a deep breath. The truth of his feelings were pushing against his pursed lips. He'd said the words before. To her. To Donna. So, why was this any different?

"I… I love her." The words came out choked, but certain.

There was a pause. His therapist was clearly deliberating what to say next, and when she finally did, he felt the air leave his chest.

"Love her how?"

Love me how?

Shit.

"Harvey, come on," Dr. Werner urged him. "You can say it. Admit it. At least to yourself. She can't hear you, right?"

"No. She… she's downstairs."

"Then try. Love her how?"

His chest heaved, as his eyes filled with tears.

"Like she's my everything."

Harvey didn't know how to describe what he felt once the words had left his mouth, but he suddenly felt lighter.

That was until he heard the doctor's next words.

"Good. Now, you need to tell her that."

He nearly dropped his phone.

After last time?

Heck, no.

He needed to deflect his therapist from this line of thought.

"But I told you, she doesn't feel that way about me. And even if she did at one point, she definitely doesn't now."

Another audible sigh came over the line, before Dr. Werner's kind voice said gently, "As your doctor, I'm not supposed to say this, but I'll say it anyway. You need to have a little faith. In yourself."

"What does that mean?"

"It means, I know what's really keeping you from doing this. But hear me out. You're a good man, Harvey. And I think Donna knows that about you: she's stuck by you through everything, good and bad, for twelve years. She clearly cared enough about you to come and see you. All of that together, has to mean something. That being said, if she doesn't feel the same about you, it'll still mean that you'll have closure. And then, you can finally start moving on."

Harvey gripped the phone tighter; the idea of Donna not feeling the same and leaving him - this time for good - killed him.

Dr. Werner clearly sensed his hesitation, when she continued urgently but sternly, "Harvey, trust me on this. You're doing this for yourself. Not for her. If you truly want to heal, you need to tell her, regardless of what she may or may not feel. Speculating before you've actually talked to her is only going to send you into another spiral, if you're not careful. You need to talk to her. Now."

He sighed, and said, "I'll try."

"That's the spirit. Remember, no matter the outcome, this can only help you move forward."

"I hope you're right."

"Trust yourself, Harvey. And trust Donna, as well. Like I told you, the fact that she's there with you tells me that she wants you in her life, one way or the other. You just have to figure out how."

"I… Yes, I see that, now."

"Good luck, Harvey. You've got this," the doctor hung up.

Throwing his phone on to the side table, he rose from the bed and made his way out of the room. He had to find Donna, and for starters, get her settled in the house. He had no idea how long she intended to stay, but he had to let her know she wasn't unwelcome like his words had implied.

His brother met him at the foot of the stairs, a knowing look on his face. "I've got the other room ready for her."

Harvey clapped him on the back, "Thanks, Marcus."

He moved towards the front porch, and as he did he caught her end of a conversation - with Rachel, he presumed.

"...I believed the worst of him from Louis. That's what hurt him so much. So, try and tell me again how I'm not responsible for his panic attacks."

His heart lurched. That was precisely what he didn't want her believing. He moved closer, stepping quietly behind her.

"You're not."

Author's Notes: Please, as always, let me know what you think. I had Harvey's therapy session planned even before I wrote Donna coming to Boston. So, I'm anxious to know what you all think.

Reviewers get to choose between accompanying the girls out on Donna's first shopping trip in Seattle or the boys on Harvey's first night out on the town. Both trips offer the possibilities of endless booze and the chance to rib Harvey or Donna about their life together.