Chapter 8 - Divine Intervention?

Keep it cool Specter. He felt like he was watching himself from outside of his own body. Just over twenty four hours ago, he would have never in a million years imagined he'd be sat drinking, talking and being on good terms with the one person who he thought he'd never see again. Someone who's disappointment in him lingered in his memory for as long as he could remember over the last four years. Now here he was, sat less than a foot away from Donna Paulsen. Who, he noticed still wore the same goddamn perfume. You really shouldn't be thinking that Specter. His mind wondered.

After half an hour of them listening intently to her stories of London and the West End, Harvey had barely said a word. He found himself trying to pry his eyes away from her, reminding himself constantly that she was real and then letting Mike and Rachel guide the conversation.

'So, why did you come back?' As soon as the question left his mouth he heard it the way it wasn't meant to sound. Donna pursed her lips slightly at him, an eyebrow raising. She cleared her throat as she straightened her body up and brushed her hair behind her ear preparing to answer him.

'Sometimes you just have to give into the inevitable,' she broke her eye contact from all of them and looked down towards her near empty drink. 'It was just the right time.'

'So you knew you were going to come back one day?' Rachel asked.

'Of course, everything happened for a reason. You guys always knew what my first passion was, and when that opportunity presented itself to me, how could I not?' She held her hands up.

Harvey felt a sharp familiar pain in his chest, the only reason that opportunity presented itself was because he was a selfish dick. Is a selfish dick - he's hedging his bets that he hasn't changed, given back half the chance.

'So, you're saying everything worked out the way it should have to begin with?' Harvey asked, finally finding the courage and looking her directly into her hazel eyes.

'Come on Harvey, I told you my first passion was the theatre. And when Jessica fired me, I wasn't going to come begging for a job I didn't originally want to keep for as long as I did in the first place. She kind of did me a favour...' she shrugged her shoulder and smiled.

Harvey laughed, 'So. That was your plan all along? To leave me?' Harvey's words that were floating around in his brain all evening, trying their hardest to escape to her ears, had well and truly finally found their way out, splitting their laid back conversation in half like a bolt of lightening.

'I don't think she quite meant it like that Harvey,' Rachel responded quickly trying to defuse his comment.

Donna turned to look at him, let out a sigh and cocked her head to one side.

'And there it is...' she smiled, 'I left New York, I didn't leave you Harvey. I saw it as my opportunity to go do something for myself.' She smiled thinking she had satisfied his apparent curiosity.

'So, you're saying you worked for me and you were never just doing that for yourself?' His voice rose slightly, Rachel tried to interject but he continued, 'See, what I can't seem to understand, is if you hated working at the firm for as long as you did... why didn't you go way before?'

There was a silence, Rachel had given up trying to silence him, she knew he wouldn't listen to her.

'Harvey, come on, that was years ago.' Mike cut in.

'It may have been years ago, but if Donna wanted to leave as much as she says she did, I'm just saying, she could have been having a whale of a time in London way before all that shit hit the fan...'

'I'm starting to think this was a bad idea,' Donna began to rise from her chair, straightening out the creases in her silk dress. Harvey tried his best not to look, keeping his eyes dead on his bottle which sat tilted in his hand ready for another swig.

'Harvey, it's been a long time, I thought we could just start a fresh and not dwell over the past.' She picked up her black Marni bag off the back of her chair as she stood up fully and turned around to them all sat at the table. 'Obviously, I was wrong.'

'Donna, don't go.' Rachel stood up and held her friend's arm.

'I was just about to go anyway, this jet lag has well and truly caught up with me and I really, really need to sleep.'

And with that, she gently kissed Rachel on the cheek and nodded a goodbye to Mike, who couldn't hide his angered glare that was directed towards Harvey.

'Goodnight Harvey, it was good to see you.' She stayed civil, even though her breathless throat was screaming at him a million things.

Upon exiting and hitting the cool night air, she let out the choking breath she was holding. As she let it out, her heart began to make its presence, through sound and through feel.

They had never been brilliant at sharing their feelings, it was more like an eight year guessing game - tossing backwards and forwards with innuendos, half spoken sentences and rhetorical questions that led nowhere. And now, yet again, here she was trying to work out what the hell was said in there with yet again, Harvey shitting Specter. Anger and annoyance had now started to engulf her as she threw her hand up in the air to hail the nearest cab. She couldn't leave quick enough.

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His beer had warmed after he'd been clinging onto it for the past ten minutes, listening to Donna's declaration of love for London and how she wished she'd left sooner.

As he swished back the last few dregs of his now warm beer, he dare not turn to see if she had fully left the bar. However, Mike's face said it all.

'Ok Harvey, I get why you don't get what she said, but she's still our friend. And yours. She didn't leave you for God's sake, can't you damn well see. That past your inflated self-absorbed ego, she had a life too to live and she took a chance to do something she had always wanted to do.'

Harvey stayed silent, his nail beginning to peel off the side of the label on his beer.

'You're both still hurting, it's raw as she's now here after four years. And we know, you've thought about her everyday. Surely you didn't want your first meeting with her to go like this?' Rachel soothed, trying to make him see sense.

'Of course I didn't, why do you think I even made the effort? But what she said. It made me feel like... like I was holding her back. And yet again, I feel like shit.'

'Well, I guess that's something you need to figure out. Why do you feel like shit?' Mike asked, sipping his beer.

'We know what she means to you Harvey. We just wish you knew.' Rachel braved a caring smile, she could see how much Harvey was hurting. He just didn't know how to sort it.

'All I heard in what you just said was I, I, I. You need to see it from her perspective if you guys ever want to get back to where you both were!' Mike snapped, trying to make his friend see sense but it wasn't proving easy. 'I've never brought up Donna with you the past few years Harvey, I've always steered clear of mentioning her as I know what mood it throws you into.'

'The way we were?' Harvey raised his brows, 'I don't even know where we were, so how am I going to get us back there?' He grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair and checked his phone was still in his pocket as he rose from the chair. He threw down a few twenty dollar bills and placed his bottle down.

'Can't say I didn't try!' he half-heartedly laughed, 'Anyway, I may go take the second round of drinks by myself. I have a new bottle of 18 with my name on it. Alone. Thanks guys, I know you care about us both, but I need to deal with this on my own.'

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Dress off, make up gone and now curled up in the corner of her couch, Donna began to flick through her phone; anything to take her mind off the fiasco that had unfolded. Goddamit the selfish idiot. She thought, Why is it always about him? She couldn't drag her mind away from what he had said about her leaving him.

It took ever sinew in her body to do what she did that day; to go head to head with Louis in that mock trial. Watching Harvey's face as Louis kept asking her over and over again. Do you love Harvey Specter? Do you love Harvey Specter? Why didn't he stop Louis sooner? Why would he have trusted Louis to interrogate her? Humiliate her in front of everyone. She wrapped her hand tightly around her glass of red wine, still flicking through her newsfeed. She clicked on his Facebook profile and began to think why the hell she started all this to begin with. She scrolled down his newsfeed, as she had expected, nothing much there but profile picture changes. She sighed and dropped her phone down onto the cushion next to her. As she swirled her wine around her glass again, trapped in deep thought, she heard it.

A familiar rhythm and sound began knocking on her apartment door.