Hey over there! I've had this idea in my mind for probably over a year and couldn't figure out how to write it down until one day I finally did... and I hope it works in this way.

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You can skip this TW if you don't want spoilers:

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The classification of this fic is M, mainly because it is a conversation about death.

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Almost like it's a choreography they know by heart, after dinner, both of them have changed into their pajamas, and while Donna puts on some music, Harvey pours each of them a drink.

He sits on one corner of the sofa, his elbow resting on the armrest, holding the glass up in the air, twirling it nervously between his fingers. Donna, for her part, sits against the other corner. She puts a cushion against the armrest to prop her back there and stretches her legs out on the couch.

For several minutes, the only sound that fills the room is music and that would be fine for both of them, except that Donna knows something isn't right. It's been a difficult and sad week for them and she can see Harvey struggling with it. He's staring down at the ground, his shoulders slumped forward and his brows furrowed. It doesn't even take Donna's skills to know that his mind is in the middle of a huge chaos right now. So, she rests her foot on his thigh, awkwardly moving her toes to make him react and for him to look at her.

"Can you tell me what's going on in that pretty little head of yours right now?" she says, after swallowing a sip of her drink.

"Nothing is happening." He responds without looking at her, wrapping his free hand around her calf.

Donna sighs, a little frustrated. "I'd rather you tell me you don't want to tell me than lie to me, because Harvey, I know you're thinking about something… I understand that what happened with Susan affected us both, but I see how you're struggling and I just want to know if I can help you a bit with that. So please don't tell me that nothing is wrong." Harvey snores and swallows his drink in one gulp, sets the glass down on the beverage cart next to him, and drops his forehead to Donna's knee, trailing his hand down her calf to wrap his hand around her heel, and he affectionately squeezes her there. Donna settles better on the couch, moving closer to him and caressing the top of his skull with her fingers. "Harvey-" she murmurs, feeling a warm tear on her knee. He just shakes his head, unable to speak.

"I'm sorry," he sobs. "All this has made me think about things I always tried to avoid."

"Do you wanna tell me?" she asks softly and reaches over to place her glass next to his. Of course, Susan's death had also stirred things up in her and it's something she had been wrestling with in her mind these past few months.

Harvey raises his head, and she gently wipes away his tears. "Not a conversation I wanna have, Donna." He snores and looks down.

"I know and neither do I." she whispers and rests her fingers on his chin, gently turning his head so that he is looking at her. "But it's something we've been sweeping under the rug for months and I don't think that's healthy."

Harvey shakes his head, his eyes brimming with tears, grabs Donna's hand, and gently kisses her knuckles. "It's so fucking scary I'm scared even to say it out loud." He says, choked with tears.

"I know." She sobs too, clinging to his hand.

When they got to Seattle, Donna had no trouble integrating with the people at the firm at all, but as expected, Harvey struggled a bit more with it. Besides Mike and Rachel, who were running the firm, there was another married couple working there: Susan and Nick, the lawyers who worked closest to Mike and Rachel. So it didn't take long for Donna and Rachel to set up a couple's dates to ease Harvey's way. And it worked.
Of course, neither Donna nor Harvey came to have the same trust that they had with Mike and Rachel, at least not in the first few months, but they had become close. And when Susan's diagnosis came, it was like a bucket of ice water falling on their heads.

Susan had been having very frequent headaches, along with nausea and dizziness, for which she had run medical tests.

A grade 4 brain tumor, with only a few months to live, was the least she expected.

She left the firm immediately, and while Harvey and Donna remained close to her, they were closest to Nick, whom they saw at the firm a few hours a week for client meetings, while the rest of the job - except on court days- he did it at home, to take care of his wife.

And Harvey saw his new friend, dragging his feet in, bags under his eyes reaching to the ground, his gaze lost and a look of sadness anyone could see. A sadness that was physical and emotional.

And there he saw his worst nightmare.

He had always been afraid of loving someone and being abandoned. This wasn't news to him nor to his complicated unconscious. Neither for Donna, who watched him fight this for years, who pushed him through many of the steps that got him to where he is today, who waited for him for over a decade, for him to be ready, ready for her.

And even though they love each other madly, and even though they were somehow managing to overcome every obstacle of married life (just as they had overcome every obstacle before they were together), and although he is happier than he could ever have imagined... he still struggles with that fear. And Donna knows it. They have even talked about it a few times.

But Harvey's fear had always been to screw up and Donna leaving her. The fear had always been that she would leave him but in terms of ending the marriage.

He had never, ever dared to consider the option that Donna might die before him. He was so certain that he would die of a sudden heart attack just like his parents (he hoped many years from now), that he had never thought about the possibility that something sudden might happen to Donna, that she might die long before he did.

And no, he has no idea what he would do.

He knows that he would not survive.

He knows he can't live without her.

Donna lets him process his emotions for several minutes. She is now sitting with her legs bent and her feet between his legs. He continues in the same position as before, looking at the ground. She holds his hand in hers, stroking the bridge between his thumb and index finger with her thumb, trying to give him an anchor in reality.

"Harvey-" she presses again, seeing that he doesn't snap out of his mental spiral.

"No, Donna." He shakes his head at her.

"Yes, Harvey," she says, determinedly. "You're not going to keep all this inside."

"What do you want me to say?" he says, full of anger, frustration, and sobbing. "That I'm terrified that you're going to die?" he can't even finish the sentence, his voice cracks as his hands start to shake.

"Harvey-" she sobs, anguish piling up in her chest.

He sniffs and turns his head to look at her again. "I always thought that I was going to die first, and I'm sorry because it's fucking selfish, but that idea calms me down because I have no idea what I'd do if it happened the other way around." He says, agitated by the crying that threatens him with each word, staring at her eyes, each time moister. "I always see you as strong, always able to handle everything... That the idea never crossed my mind that something like this could happen to you. But I always saw Susan in the same way. Ever since I met her, I had the feeling that she was like you, I don't know how to explain it, but..." he wants to keep talking, but Donna can't control her crying and he can see her struggling to try to keep herself whole, after all, she insisted on having this conversation. "Come here," Harvey says, patting his thighs. She nods and sits on his lap. Donna wraps one of her arms around his neck and he wraps both arms around her waist.

"I was trying to console you." She says, giggling a little, crying so much that her voice cracks. He chuckles softly, too, and stretches enough to place a sweet kiss on her lips. "I'm sorry."

"No, you don't have to apologize." He sobs, bringing one of his hands up to her face, holding her jaw, stretching his thumb to the corner of her eye, softly stroking her there.

Donna sniffles and rests her forehead against his. "I've been thinking about this too, Harvey." She says and takes a deep breath. "And this sucks, and it terrifies me..."

"But you wanna talk about this..."

She nods. "And you do not."

He chuckles. "You're always the one who wants to talk here."

"I know." She responds and pulls away from him a bit, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand. "Although now... I don't know what to say, or what I want you to say. I don't know."

"Okay, we don't have a script here."

She smiles at him and sweetly kisses him. "It's sad that something like this has to happen to remind you that at any moment, it could all be over." She says, her crying deepening again. "And Harvey, I don't want it to end." She sobs. "I mean, I'm not stupid. I know that at some point we will die…" she swallows. "But I feel that I still have so many things that I want to live with you, and in turn, I know that I'll never have enough."

"You know what was the first thing I thought when we found out that Susan's tumor was terminal?" she denies it with her head. "In our vows."

"Love is a terrifying thing. It's not safe. Because when you love someone, you have to face the fact that you could lose them. Sometimes, life throws an unexpected wrench in your way. It might be that you're in jeopardy of losing your career, your freedom, or worst of all, you might even find out that a loved one has died. These things make you realize how precious life is. How important every second we have on this earth is. And how important the people we care about are to us."

She says Harvey's exact vows, word for word.

"Do you remember them by heart?"

"It was one of the nicest things you said to me... And yes, I've been reading and remembering them a lot lately."

Harvey nods and wipes away the tears down Donna's face. "You said something you just said to me too." He mutters and responds with his wife's vows. "None of us know how much time we really have. It could be a minute. It could be an hour. It could be 50 years. But I know even if it's a hundred years, I'll never have enough time with you."

"You remember them too." She responds, while now she is the one who dries his tears.

"Well, I've been thinking about it lately, too."

"We've said it at our wedding, and in turn, we've managed to never bring it up between us."

"We have experience dodging topics of conversation, don't you think?" he says, trying to defuse the situation a bit and he succeeds because he makes her laugh.

"I can't say you're not right." She responds and hugs him, wrapping her arms around his neck and seeking refuge in him. Harvey hugs her around her waist, spreading his hands on her back and his nose is buried in her neck.

The music fills the room again, although this time it competes with their sobs that at times seem uncontrollable.

"You know? When I was a kid, I was very afraid of death. I couldn't even stand that Death was a character in cartoons, for example. I was terrified to think of something so huge, unknown, definitive..." he mutters. "And I never thought I'd be less afraid of dying-" his voice cracks again and Donna feels him shaking in her arms. "That the one who dies be you and be left alone."

Donna places a sweet kiss on him, in the small space where his jaw meets his neck, a particular place she knows he enjoys, and then nuzzles his ear with her nose, moving up for a second kiss on his temple. "I'm also terrified that there could be a life without you, Harvey," she whispers. "I'm going to tell you something you don't know..." she says to him and he pulls back a bit, so he can look at her. "Part of accepting the idea of coming here was because I knew that you would be calmer, that you would have more free time, that you would be able to go running every morning as you like, that you were going to be able to go boxing as many times as you wanted and that we would have the weekends to ourselves." She says, letting a few tears fall, as she scratches behind his ear. "And I didn't accept it just because of the enjoyment we could both have as a couple. I also accepted it because I knew that all those changes would help you have less stress... and all of that Harvey," she begins to sob again. "It reduces the chances of you having a heart attack like your parents." She says, choking on tears. "So no Harvey, you're not the only one who has those kinds of thoughts. I'm also terrified of the idea of a life without you." She confesses, doing her best to make her words understandable through tears, taking off a backpack that weighed a ton.

Harvey holds her lovingly, rubbing her back as she talks, feeling a little stupid for not seeing this sooner. The knot of pain tightens in the middle of his chest and he wishes he could say something that would erase the pain he sees in his wife's eyes, but he knows that anything he could say would be useless right now, so he just wipes her tears and sweetly kisses her. "Thank you." He mutters against her lips.

"Why?" she frowns.

"Because you took care of me in silence, like you always do." He says sweetly, admiring the love in Donna's gaze.

She smiles at him. "I'll always take care of you, Harvey. For you, but also for me, because I love you, and I want you healthy and here, with me."

"I promise to do the same with you." He responds, tucking her hair behind her ear. "I want you here too, healthy and with me." He says and kisses her. "And I love you too." He murmurs and they kiss again.

"And you also promise me that we still have more things to live for than we can imagine?"

He nods with a huge smile. "I promise."

"Look, I trust you." She tells him amused, raising her index finger to him. The two laugh and hug again.

Donna snuggles into his chest, feeling under her hand for his heartbeat and holding on to that soft pounding to steady herself.

Harvey wraps his arms around her lovingly, placing his hand between her shoulder blades, seeking to feel her breath so he can seek some serenity.

The minutes pass, both with their eyes closed, clinging with all their might to each other and to the present moment.

It's Harvey who breaks the state, giving her a kiss on the forehead.

"Hmm?" she hums, throwing her head back so she can look at him.

He can't help but smile at her now sleepy face. "Do you promise me something else?"

"What?"

"That we are going to do it the same day, together, hand in hand?" she frowns. "To die I say."

Donna swallows a laugh. "Oh my god, Harvey. You're more Shakespearean than I thought."

"I was being serious." He says with a pout on his lips.

"Yeah, I was just trying to make you laugh, but it was a failure." She says and moves to straddle him. "Sorry, I don't know if this conversation brought anything good here." She says and traces with her fingers the line of Harvey's jaw. "I guess we can't come to any conclusions anyway, because it's something we can't control."

"The future scares me so much sometimes, Donna." He snores with frustration.

"It scares us all." She says and takes a deep breath. "And I don't know if there's anything else we can do other than enjoy the present moment." She says, hooking her hands around his neck.

"Sometimes I have a hard time doing it. Almost always, in fact." He says, resting her hands on Donna's thighs as a gesture of affection.

"It isn't easy."

"No." He snores.

"And is there a time when it's easier for you?" she asks with mischievous curiosity. She knows that Harvey just rested his hands on her thighs because he finds it comfortable, but she can't deny that it's too nice.

"Hmm? What are you implying, Paulsen?"

"That right now we're alive and I know very few things that make me feel as alive as making love to you." She murmurs, moving closer to his lips.

Harvey smiles against her lips and wraps his arms around her waist, making her fall onto the couch and he falls on top of her.

It's slow, smooth, and loving. They even cry at times.

Donna takes it upon herself to give Harvey as much love as she can.

And then he does the same with her.

They run over each other with their hands, their lips, and their tongues. They take it upon themselves to remind each other that they are alive, very alive.

Harvey falls back on his wife's naked body, making room inside her, until he fills her completely and comes close to her ear.

"You haven't answered me if you promise." He says, sweetly smooching her neck.

She smiles and turns her head to find his face an inch from hers. "I promise you." She responds and though they both know it's an empty promise, however, it soothes their hearts.

Harvey kisses up her jaw until he is positioned on top of her again, beginning to rock his hips, while kissing her lips.

"It's a good deal. And I expect many things from paradise, but above all, I hope that we are together and that this is allowed."

Donna laughs. "Are you so sure that you will go to paradise?"

Harvey laughs even more. "No, but I know that you're capable of convincing even Saint Peter."

Donna bursts out laughing. "So... This thing that sounded completely romantic and honeyed actually had a hidden interest? For me to convince Saint Peter?" Harvey also bursts out laughing and pounces on her, completely crushing her and burying his face in her hair.

"Oh my god, that was cruel." She keeps laughing.

"Wouldn't you convince Saint Peter for me?" he asks, looking back at her.

"Mmm..." she teases him. "If he promises me that this is allowed in paradise, I sure as hell I will." Harvey bites his own lower lip, giggling. "But we're here for now, Harvey." She says, turning serious again, running her fingers down his spine, from the base to his nape. "And that's all I want to think about right now." She murmurs and Harvey doesn't need to say anything else, he just pushes himself inside her again and smirks when he sees her closing her eyes and arching her waist, as a soft moan leaves her mouth.

He wants to spend every day of his life making her feel this alive.

Thanks so much for reading! If you've made it this far, I'd really like to read what you think about this.