A/N: Thank you so, so much for giving this story a chance. I was honestly blown away by the response to it. I hope you like this chapter, too.

Harvey is waiting for her in front of the theatre two nights later. She's almost surprised to see him again so soon, she'd been worried it would take weeks for him to come around. This time, he's wearing a pair of jeans and a casual dark grey sweater and her eyes trail over his form appreciatively.

He is leaning against the wall near the entrance giving her a sheepish look which she takes as a good sign. Donna says goodnight to her cast members quickly before making her way over to him.

"I didn't expect you to come around again so soon."

"I have questions," he starts, "and you're the only one who can answer them. So," he looks at her, "Can we go somewhere to talk?"

"Yeah, sure. I haven't had dinner yet though and I'm starving."

"Do you want to eat Thai? Gretchen said a new place just opened up a couple of blocks from here."

"I could definitely go for some Thai," she agrees, her stomach rumbling.

Thirty minutes later, they are sitting in a small restaurant. Despite the slight awkwardness due to neither of them knowing how to approach this situation, they have managed to make a little bit of small talk while Donna is digging into her well-deserved dinner.

"I need to apologise again. There is no excuse for not telling you sooner. I was honestly going to tell you, I just…" Her eyes flicker around the room briefly, "I needed time."

She's met with silence but she knows Harvey and she can see that he is working through his emotions in order to be honest with her too. They've never been open with each other. It was always push and pull, teasing and daring all in one, and it had taken him months to figure out that he couldn't get that same energy anywhere else.

"You're right. You should have told me… but maybe we both needed it," he muses. "I didn't realise what a big part of my life you were until you no longer were."

It's an admission, it's more than she hoped for. Even if he didn't say he missed her, she can read between the lines.

"I understand."

"About what you said… about us," he doesn't look at her and she thinks she knows what he is going to say and where this is headed. His rejection still feels like a fading bruise and all of this, his proximity, him knowing about the baby, is not helping it.

"Let's not complicate things. Let's focus on this?" He looks up into her worried eyes then, he can see her hiding, shutting off and wanting him to leave it at that, so he just nods.

It's not like anything has changed – except that it irrevocably has.

They eat in silence for a while until Harvey can't take it any longer.

"So, you and I are having a baby?"

Donna's eyes snap up, and she would laugh at his comically wide eyes if the situation wasn't so serious. Instead, she nods letting him lead this conversation.

"How did you find out?"

"A pair of jeans felt snug," she admits reluctantly. "That's when everything suddenly made sense. The slight nausea, the exhaustion…" She shrugs. "I was beginning to show."

His brows draw together, "How did you not put two and two together before? You're Donna."

"I wasn't paying attention." There's an edge of something in her voice. Defensiveness or annoyance, he isn't quite sure. It's entirely unlike Donna to not be alert of what's happening in her own life, her own body. "I got thrown into a busy work schedule of rehearsing and memorising lines."

It's the truth, she had thrown herself into work quite literally. She had welcomed the distraction and how good it felt to see herself thrive professionally in something that had nothing to do with the law.

Sitting here tonight feels surreal.

They are not working together anymore. Instead they are having a conversation about her being pregnant over dinner. It's not a situation either of them saw in their future.

"I thought we were covered that night." He rubs his hand over his temple.

"I know, me too."

They had been reckless though and things had gotten messy after they added strawberries and whipped cream to the mix. Putting on a condom hadn't even entered his mind until Donna had positioned herself above him with intent.

"I can't wrap my head around the idea of it, Donna," he shakes his head in a feeble attempt to rid his mind of those images. "What are we supposed to do?"

Something snaps inside of her. "Make the best of it, Harvey. It happened and we can't take it back. Even if I could, I wouldn't."

"I know. I know, it's just… not the right time. This isn't how I imagined becoming a father."

It's not like he had ever thought of becoming a father before. He couldn't even keep the girls he slept with straight – not because they weren't interesting enough but because he didn't want to open up. It's why he usually stuck to young and beautiful women who were looking for the same thing he was; a good time.

Sweat starts pooling around his hairline and he feels Donna's gaze on him. She's reading him like an open book.

"You can be as involved as you want," she says finally, sounding resigned. "I'm not forcing you to do anything. But Harvey, it's happening whether you are there for it or not."

He thinks of his cheating mother then, and his busy father. How they both managed to fuck him up in their own ways and he doesn't want to be like that, like them. There's no denying that he's not ready for fatherhood. His work and career have always come first and a child would mess all of that up but he's never backed down from a challenge and he's not about to start now.

"I do want to be involved," he is certain of that. "But Donna, I don't know the first thing about parenthood."

"We'll figure it out along the way," she reassures him.

He watches Donna who seems to have all the answers. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail tonight and he can see the very cascade of freckles on her clavicles that he had sucked on with his lips mere months before. Her eyes are determined, showing faith in him and if anyone could make him want to do the right thing, it's her.

Donna seems larger than life to him anyway and she is far more complex and layered than he had assumed. It scares him how much he trusts her and how comfortable he feels with her.

"Good."

"Good." Her smile matches his own, and he wants to believe that maybe things would turn out to be alright.

"In fact, I want to be there for your next ultrasound appointment if that's alright with you?"

"Yes, of course. I have a level 2 ultrasound coming up next week to see how the baby is developing. I can give you the details." She sounds excited, he notices, and he is quietly thunderstruck by it.

Tonight went better than expected.

They leave the doctor's office lost in thought. Donna's ultrasound appointment had gone well. It was Harvey's first time seeing their baby and even though he had tried to hide it, he is pretty sure that Donna saw how hard he swallowed when they heard the heartbeat of the baby. The wave of love that had crashed over him was unexpected and all-consuming, it was unlike anything he'd ever experienced. Everything was beginning to feel real and tangible and it scared the crap out of him how fast things were changing.

Donna nudges him a little when they enter the elevator until he turns to look at her, "Hey, you okay? You seem a thousand miles away."

"Yeah. Yeah, I just… this is it." He looks down at her belly in awe. "She is real and it's scary. Two weeks ago I didn't even know about her."

God knows it took her months to get used to the thought that she was pregnant and going to be a mother soon. Just like she hadn't expected to have a little human being to worry about in 4 months' time, she's sure it's the same for Harvey. The fact that he actually wants to be involved means more to her than she's willing to admit. Her main concern had been him lashing out, telling her he's not ready for a baby either and all the consequences that would follow. But he's here and trying and the fact that she's not the only one worrying is enough to calm her down.

"You'll get used to it," she reassures him. "You know, I had a feeling it's a girl," she admits when they exit the elevator.

"I hadn't really thought about it…"

The news of her pregnancy had been on the forefront of his mind all week but he'd been too consumed thinking about all the ways he could accidentally screw up his offspring that he hadn't even paused to think about what the baby was going to look or be like.

"I know. It's a lot to wrap your head around."

"It is. But I'm glad she's a girl." He suddenly smirks. "The very first Specter girl."

He looks at her and catches her smile, it starts out slowly, just a tug on the corner of her mouth but then it spreads across her whole face and he can't tear his gaze away.

"She is."

"Maybe she has your smile, or your hair," he thinks out loud. A mini version of Donna running around their feet, wavy auburn hair and his eyes; the thought makes his heart skip a beat and he quickly swallows back the image.

His statement sets off a wave of emotion out of nowhere and she finds herself not wanting to part ways yet.

"Do you maybe want to grab lunch together? I only have an hour until I need to be at the theatre for the matinee but…" She almost worries her lip between her teeth, suddenly thinking it's too soon for them to spend time together but Harvey says yes before she can overthink it.

They have lunch in a small restaurant close to the theatre. To anyone who looked at them they'd just seem like a normal couple who are expecting a baby, Harvey thinks, and the thought makes him want to bail. He should be back at the firm already but instead he accepted her invitation for reasons he can't explain himself.

Donna orders fries and a small salad and explains that she wants to eat something light before the show. He opts for a steak himself and they find themselves catching up like old friends.

"What's it been like at Pearson Hardman?"

"More work, longer hours. Better pay. I moved into a bigger condo a couple of weeks ago." He doesn't say that it looks like a bachelor pad and that he will need to rearrange it before the baby comes; another thought that makes him sweat. "I'm pretty sure you'd love Louis. He's weird."

"We'd probably be friends then."

"He would 'adore' you," he mockingly quotes Louis. "He's into ballet and theatre and all that stuff."

"So he's the one who told you about my play?"

She'd wondered about it all week. Harvey Specter does not keep up with off-Broadway plays and he had made it very clear that they were done now that they didn't work together anymore, so someone must have told him about it.

"It was Bertha actually…"

"Where did you meet Bertha?"

"Apparently she knows Gretchen, my secretary. I saw them talking one day and she asked about 'Red'."

"You have a new secretary?" It shouldn't surprise her, the man is hopeless without someone telling him where he needs to be and how to act. So it only makes sense, it feels weird though. Thinking about someone else doing all those things for him now.

"Yeah, I'm not allowed to fire her, I already fired her predecessors."

That makes her laugh. "Now that, I can believe."

"Hey! Not my fault my new secretary has big shoes to fill," he winks at her, actually winks, and she has a hard time not showing him how much it affects her but her heart is stuttering in her chest and she secretly loves it, loves the way he makes her feel with just a few words that don't mean anything to him.

"And they told you about my play?"

"Yes, they might have been up to something." Thinking back on it, he thinks he's right and he chuckles.

Donna takes a bite of the fry, closing her eyes and pursing her lips in satisfaction. Harvey stares at her, dumbstruck for reasons he can't explain himself. When she opens her eyes, he looks away quickly and takes a sip of his water. The urge to run in the opposite direction hits him again and he allows for the panic to settle in, however, he makes sure Donna doesn't know about it.

"Look, I have to get back to the office but I want to do right by her." He glances at her belly. "I want to be there for it all, Donna."

She only nods, suddenly at a loss for words as her throat closes up.

"If there is anything going on at all, you call me, you got that?"

"I will," she forces out.

He's about to leave the restaurant when he turns around.

"And Donna?"

"Yes?"

"I want to do right by you too."

It's Friday night and he knows Donna has been craving ice cream in all combinations lately, so when she'd called from the theatre earlier, complaining that his daughter was craving food, ('okay, yes it's mostly me who craves it, what about it.') he'd promised to swing by her place after work.

It has become their new routine since they don't see each other at work anymore. They are slowly slipping into a safe place where they are only friends. It's harder on some days and nights but being in each other's lives again was what they ultimately craved - no matter in which form - and for the past six weeks it has worked.

So here he is for the umpteenth time, standing in front of apartment 206, wondering how they managed to go from sex with strawberries and whipped cream to friends who are having a baby together.

Donna opens the door after a short moment. Her hair is pulled back and twisted with a clip holding it in place, her face not made up and she's wearing loungewear. When she steps aside to allow Harvey entry, her eyes crinkle around the edges with a smile he returns. The way she looks at him makes him feel grateful for how far they have come.

She grabs the ice cream he bought from his hands and smirks, "Chunky Monkey? Are you trying to tell me or the baby something?"

She hears him follow her into the kitchen where she gets two spoons and looks at Harvey in question but he shakes his head. "I'm most definitely not. Although I guess our little peanut is starting to look like a chunky monkey more and more by the day."

They make their way over to her couch and he loses his jacket on the way. They settle down next to each other, almost touching but never actually doing so anymore. Her living room is only lit by candles and a lamp in the corner which make the space look cosy and intimate.

"Oh, trust me, she is," Donna laughs and rubs over her belly which is getting more pronounced by the day.

After a moment, Harvey places his hand next to hers on the swell of her belly. It's the first time he's touched her since, well, the night this happened and he feels Donna tense but then it's gone and he thinks he must have imagined it. "Is she kicking?"

His hand feels warm on her belly and Donna stares at it. She can feel her daughter's kicks and flutters under her skin and she removes her hand to direct Harvey's hand to where she can feel them. "Yeah, here, just wait for it."

Nothing happens for a minute and Donna starts eating her Chunky Monkey ice cream while they are waiting for her to kick again. It doesn't take too long until she feels those tiny butterfly flutters and then there is a kick against the spot where Harvey's hand rests.

A big smile starts spreading on his face as he lays a second hand on her belly to feel all of the movements. It's still difficult for him to wrap his head around the fact that they are going to be the parents of this tiny human being in a few short months but feeling her kicks as she makes herself known is making it that much realer and he can't help but whisper, "Hey you, we can't wait to meet you soon."

Donna feels tears gathering in her eyes and she blinks them away. Harvey's only used this sort of scratchy but deeply sincere voice with her once before and it brings back memories she's stored away. "You do know she's going to take over our entire lives, right? I say we enjoy the quiet before the storm."

Harvey chuckles and finally pulls away to settle into the cushions.

"Mhmm," Donna hums as another spoonful of ice cream melts on her tongue, "This one is my favourite."

"I know." They've tried out so many different flavours but this one definitely was a winner. "It's been kind of hard not to notice the way you moan every time you dig into it," he chuckles, his eyes fixated on her lips, lost in the way they wrap around the spoon as she flicks the ice cream off of it, before he notices her expression. "I mean–"

Donna pulls up a leg and turns to look at him properly then, studying his slightly flustered expression with wide eyes.

"What?"

"Nothing." He shakes his head, feeling caught, it always ends this way now; neither of them willing to acknowledge that there is still something between them. Their feelings are simmering beneath the surface but there is too much at stake to remember how well they go together.

"Yeah," she agrees, bringing another spoonful of the ice cream blended with chocolate and banana to her mouth. If she feels a tiny sting, she certainly doesn't acknowledge it.

His eyes linger on her though and for a moment she imagines pulling him close, raking her arms over his muscular back and taking him right here, right now again. Her body is craving to be touched; maybe it's pregnancy hormones, maybe she's only tried to convince herself that being friends is enough for her, but either way, she forces the thought back as soon as it fully forms.

"I should go," he says regretfully.

The setting is too intimate tonight somehow, and it's making him think about her that way again. It's too domestic. She lets him see this whole other side of her now. All her layers. He'd only known her as his witty secretary before, but now she's also his friend, the mother of his child and the woman he can't get out of his system.

Donna really manages to be the only person that keeps him on his toes, he thinks, and with her, it's different anyway.

He sees a flash of disappointment cross Donna's face as he gets up but she conceals it quickly, nodding and thanking him for bringing over the ice cream.

"When you begged me to come over to have dinner with your mom and her boyfriend, I did not see it going like this," Harvey laughs as he closes the door behind the guests after a long and eventful night.

"Me neither," Donna snickers, almost bursting out laughing again as she remembers Harvey cracking up over some stupid pregnancy joke she'd told about baby strawberries. "This was one godawful dinner party. I'm never having them over again."

"Come on, it wasn't half that bad," he tries to reason as they make their way into her kitchen.

"Harvey, you spat a piece of shrimp across the room and into the back of my mother's hair!" Donna exclaims, still shaking with laughter as she pours Harvey another glass of wine.

"And she didn't even feel it because of all the hairspray. It stuck in there like a tick."

He accepts the glass and takes a sip of it while Donna prepares a cup of tea for herself to calm down.

"Oh my god, I don't think I can look at my mom again for at least a few months."

Her cheeks are rosy from laughing and her freckles are more prominent than usual and even though her mum had been more than embarrassing tonight, she doesn't think she's felt this happy in a while.

There's definitely a comfortable energy in the room and they snicker about the fact that her mom's new boyfriend is at least half a head smaller than her mom and from Alabama of all places until Donna's tea is ready and they start clearing the table in her dining room.

Donna puts all the plates together and carries them towards the kitchen but Harvey is right behind her and quick to take them away from her.

"No heavy lifting!"

"Harvey, that's hardly lifting at all."

He glares at her rounded midsection so she leaves it at that, there's no arguing with him when it comes to her taking care of herself and the baby. Her belly is getting really big and she carries it low, her bladder is constantly getting kicked and her organs are squished anyway. So she figures it's okay if he does the dishes tonight.

Her mum and her boyfriend had come down to New York City for the weekend to see the closing night of 'How the world began', and everything had gone smoothly right up until the point when her mom had asked about the nursery and where the baby would live.

She and Harvey hadn't discussed the topic in detail yet but both of them knew that for the first year at least, their daughter would live with Donna. Which role he would play and to which extent she would allow him to be involved after the birth neither of them knew yet. There are still eight weeks left to figure it out though.

They had shown Clara and her boyfriend John the nursery which they had just finished days before and Clara had gushed about the white furniture, little baby clothes and toys and she'd hardly been able to stop. Donna had glanced at him apologetically a few times but he'd only smirked. He was excited to meet their daughter too.

During dinner, Clara had made a comment about how glad she was that they'd finally gotten their act together.

"Donna never said who the father was but I always knew. You just fit together." John hum-agreed and added, "The energy is clearly there." Donna stared at them furiously for a long moment, clearly wanting to strangle both of them.

"Mom, you know he's just here as a friend."

Clara smiled, "Sure, honey."

It had led to Donna taking control of the conversation until dinner was over. Harvey had found it amusing to see how flustered Donna was and it had distracted him from the fact that it indeed felt like they were a couple and he was meeting her family for the first time.

"So, my mom hasn't scared you away yet?" Donna asks tentatively as they settle into a routine of him cleaning the dishes and her drying them.

"She's very charismatic, I can see where you get it from." He hands her a plate. "If our daughter is anything like you both, I'm definitely overpowered."

"Well, the Paulsen gene is anything but recessive," Donna smirks.

"Very true. But no, honestly not. I'm in this, Donna. The baby is my priority." (You're my priority too, but that thought never fully forms.)

He hands her the salad bowl and she takes it, making sure they don't touch. It's easiest when they keep some distance, she's found. Ever since that night where he'd touched her belly she's been more cautious of their touches. It's not that she doesn't want to touch him, it's that she still wants to touch him more than she can, more than she's allowed to.

They've been seeing each other more often recently, mostly meeting up after work to have dinner and she's sure that they can do this, she's sure she can find a way to not look at him that way but it won't happen overnight and certainly not if he keeps looking at her with those puppy eyes, his head cocked to the side, asking her if the baby is alright.

It makes her hormones rage. Rage because she can't climb him like a tree again and because he's not ready for more.

"Well, good, and don't listen to anything she says. She's obsessed with romance. I don't understand why she thinks John is the right guy for that," she laughs again, "but I'm glad she's finally happy."

"Does your dad know about him?"

"He does and he's not happy. It's a nightmare. They can't even stay in the same room anymore. That's why I wanted to have you here tonight. To see if you and my mom get along at least."

"Donna, you don't have to worry about that. I want them both to be a part of our daughter's life. Just like I want my father to be a part of hers too."

Donna nods absently, it's what she wants too. "How's Gordon, by the way?"

"He's doing good. He keeps asking for updates about the baby you know. He loves you." He glances at her and sees her self-satisfied smile. Gordon has always liked the redhead and he'd been thrilled when Harvey told him about her pregnancy.

"I am pretty amazing. I miss our phone conversations," she admits. And it's not just the phone conversation she misses but those little stories about Harvey's childhood and insights into what shaped him into the man he is today.

They finally finish drying and putting the dishes away. It's late already and it's been a long and exhausting day. The closing night had been amazing but emotional. Donna feels her bones ache from doing the last two shows today and working all week. Harvey finishes his wine and Donna accompanies him to the door where he lingers.

"Thank you for tonight, Donna," he says softly. There's an unspoken conversation happening in their eyes as they look at each other. She knows something has shifted between them tonight, introducing Harvey to her mom was a big deal, whether it was just as a friend or not, and seeing them all get along meant a lot to her.

"You're welcome." She bites her lip and watches him turn around and leave when all she wants is to ask him to stay.

A/N: Reviews are always very much appreciated and make me update faster xx