A/N: It probably goes without saying at this point, but this will probably make you a little sad.
I
Elm trees line the streets of the Hudson River Greenway, announcing summer's end in the yellowing leaves peeking out through crowded branches. The trees are not much taller than Donna remembers. Alice used to grab the low branches and swing from them. Pick off the leaves and stick them in her hair like a chaplet.
So close.
Donna cuts through the shadows, trying to keep pace with Jonathan, overriding the protest of her hammering heart. She wonders how it will feel, seeing the house again, the dog. Will the memories come flooding back? The good, the bad, the mundane? Will she be nostalgic? Sentimental? Crushed? Will every corner of the place feel haunted and absolute? Or will it feel like home, like everything?
Turning a corner onto Washington Street, two blocks away from the penthouse complex, the powerful nutty aroma of freshly brewed coffee greets her from a distance. It's not a smell she attributes to this place, and she thinks it must be new. New like the wide-eaves of a Chinese eatery where Capsouto Frères used to boast of the best soufflés in New York. Beyond that, her once beloved Spice Market is now a Holistic Dentist and the old Byer's Pharmacy has transformed into a tea shop of some sort. Even the cracks in the pavement that used to catch her heels have been redone. The neighborhood, which at one point she had known so intimately, now seems a foreign country. She is a stranger here, conspicuous and out of place.
She sees it then, surrounded by orange and white road blocks, the front entrance guarded from the media.
Space seems to drop away from all sides of her as she stops to stand in the street, neck craning, honed in on the stone balustrade of the forty-fourth floor. Though the rain has stopped, wetness from the streets soaks her suede heels. The summer night's breeze brings with it a chill from the Hudson. The city sounds around her, bustling and blind.
Suddenly she wonders what she's doing here, idling in her rain soaked black dress, put on for Harvey, its lewd décolletage nothing but wasted expectation. She who has spent years hiding and pretending, and for a few seconds of panic can't answer herself why, except that maybe some part of her hoped to glimpse the past, as if going back to the very place that broke her would now somehow piece her back together.
The heart inside her chest beats a heightened rhythm of distress. She doesn't think she can go through with this.
She takes a step back onto the sidewalk, glancing over to find Jonathan watching her. His eyes beneath the street lights remind her of the sea in fog, a layer of softness skirting the surface of something fathomless and cold.
"I thought," she starts, and then pauses, pressing her lips together. Facing his cool, dense stillness, she feels chaotic and ugly with emotion. Her left hand starts to fidget, sliding the ring on her right middle finger up and down clammy skin. "God, I don't even know what I thought — that I'd be healed by now? But…" She shakes her head, her eyes gliding back to the balcony, to the ledge she stood at all those years ago. A lifetime ago.
"You won't feel any worse," Jonathan says, reading the words she won't say on her face. "All that pain and anger you think you left behind, you've just been dragging it with you."
Donna swallows against the burning in her throat. That's exactly what she's afraid of, that even though she stepped off that balcony ledge, part of her is still there, toeing the edge, wondering what the point of it is.
What's the point of any of it?
Her attention slides back to Jonathan. His silver eyes search hers, intent and calculating, as if he can see right inside of her—see everything. The fact that he doesn't turn away from whatever he sees makes her breath come out a little unsteady. It makes her wonder how often, since finding out who she is and what she's done, Harvey has had to look away.
"If you want to go in, then go in. If you don't, then don't. It's your call."
Donna frowns at the building thirty feet in front of her, her heart still beating its anxious, anguished rhythm.
Let it break, she thinks, and then she steps into the street.
II
Jonathan is in the kitchen with Alice when Donna walks in, the two of them peering into a copper mixing bowl.
"It's too liquidy," says Alice. She is perched on the kitchen island counter with Jonathan leaning in beside her. They look oddly amicable, and Donna hopes – prays – this is how they always are when she's not looking.
"It's fine." Jonathan bats Alice's hand away as she goes to dip a finger into the concoction. "We followed the recipe."
"But it has to be perfect." Alice sniffs at the bowl, frowning. "We should do it again. With less of that stinky vinegar and more of those purple things."
Molly, who is curled up beneath the dining table watching the commotion, quirks an ear up and glances at the entryway. Donna gives the retriever puppy a quiet smile, causing her to spring up and bolt over. Her little paws slide clumsily along the hardwood, giving the notion that she is running in place and probably would be if not for her tail, which wags with such aggression it seems to be all that propels her forward.
Alice's head whips around. Finding Donna in the foyer, she grins hugely. "Mom!" She leaps off the counter and races Molly across the dining room. "Guess what! Guess what!"
Donna drops her purse and catches Alice midair, relishing in the feel of that fierce, almost suffocating way in which she wraps her arms around Donna's neck.
"Hello, sweet girl." She presses her lips to her daughter's velvety cheek.
Alice squirms away. "C'mon," she says. "Guess."
"Okay, okay." Donna drops the child to the floor. "How about a nice No Evidence of Disease?"
Alice shakes her head, almost offended that Donna would think her news so pedestrian. Cancer has never been high up on the list of things she concerns herself with; whether the news is good or bad, she takes it in the same stride. She's like a bird, Donna thinks, there is no up or down to her, just a big expanse of sky that is sometimes clear and sometimes cloudy, and she'll soar through it regardless.
"Guess again."
Donna follows the little redhead into the kitchen. Molly trots along beside them, sniffing at Donna's ankles and dress hem.
"Hm. Let's see." Donna leans against the counter beside Jonathan. A quick glance at the mysterious bowl and she finds something that looks a lot like coleslaw. She turns her attention back to Alice and quirks a brow. "You found my missing Jimmy Choos?"
A sheepish smile tugs at Alice's lips. "It's not Molly's fault," she says. "Chew is in the name."
Donna frowns.
"Anyway — that's not the news."
Donna feels something warm — a hand — slide along her hip and settle against her backside. She turns to find Jonathan staring at her through dark lashes. "How was work?" he asks.
"Not great." Donna reaches over to smooth a stray strand of Alice's hair, but she ducks out of the way, still chanting guessguessguess. "I had to fire the head of accounting this morning."
She braces herself for one of his looks. Not an angry one — Jonathan's not the type to yell or lose his temper, he's far too reserved, too endearingly noble, for any show of emotion, but there is a cool, level gaze she gets sometimes that tells her she's disappointed him in some fundamental way. So she waits for it, offering even, as if to coax the displeasure out of him, "He was looking too closely at the Cyderkon numbers."
Jonathan's grip on her tightens, his thumb gently rubbing at the exposed skin on her back. There is a faraway look in his eyes that always makes Donna think a fraction of him is somewhere else. Anywhere else, but here. With her.
"I'll pour you a glass of wine," he says, hand slipping away.
Donna watches him strut across the kitchen to the beverage cooler, her brow arched curiously at his back.
Alice tugs at Donna's arm, demanding her attention. "Are you done guessing? Can I just say?"
Donna smiles down at her daughter. Her eyes drift over the child's freckled face and messy hair and her chest swells, pressed by a love so completely full it almost hurts to breathe. "Yes, but first tell me how your appointment went."
Alice sighs, annoyed, but old enough to sense the unrelenting tone in her mother's voice. "It went fine."
"What did the doctor say?"
"I can't remember."
"Well, did it seem good –"
"I said I don't remember," Alice repeats, and there is a fierce look that flashes in her blue eyes that Donna is almost afraid to challenge. Almost.
"Drop the attitude and try again."
"No! All you care about is my stupid doctor's appointment. You don't care about anything else." Alice backs up a step, making room for the glare she throws Donna to make its impact. "You can just forget my news," she shouts and then turns and races out of the kitchen. Her little feet on the stairs thump an angry rhythm brought to a crescendo by the forceful slam of her bedroom door.
Donna looks over at Jonathan, who from the refrigerator gives her a sympathetic and useless not-my-funeral grimace.
She shakes her head. "Is she for real?"
"It's a big game tonight. She's got a lot riding on her."
Donna nods, finding it odd that he's making excuses for Alice when he's normally so eager to discipline her. "God help us when she hits puberty. That door slam probably cracked the plaster."
Jonathan drags a hand down his face. She thinks he might be trying to hide a smile. "In her defense," he says, "the news is pretty big."
"Don't make me feel bad."
He crosses the room, offering the glass of wine she was promised. It's then that Donna notices the knuckles of his right hand are bruised and scabbed over. She doesn't let herself ask nor does she deliberate what or – more likely – who was on the receiving end of such an injury. It's easier that way.
"Want me to drag her back down and make her apologize?"
"No. She's probably right to be mad. I know I get weird about all this." She blows out a breath and then remembers the wine and takes a sip. Chablis. She wonders what the occasion is. "I just feel like my whole world is threatening to cave in at any moment and every time we skate by one of these appointments undamaged we're just propping something inevitable up with a flimsy stick."
"You shouldn't think like that," he murmurs. His voice is low and deep and softer than she's used to.
"I know I shouldn't. But I do. And I don't know how much time has to pass until I don't."
Jonathan nods his understanding in that weird, vaguely military way he has. Curt and straight. A little dismissive. Donna rests her lips against the rim of her glass, studying his intense gray eyes and subtly expressive brows. Knowing this is a game she never wins, she still attempts to read him anyway. The softness, the Chablis, excusing Alice's temper… something isn't right here.
Suddenly her stomach aches with worry. "Jonathan," she draws out slowly. "Is there something —"
"It's just my leg, honey," he says, fixing her with his bleak gaze. "It's been bugging me."
"Oh." Understanding flickers through Donna. The leg. A word loaded with more meaning than the IED that shattered his femur four years ago. It's the Abbas Ghar, the ambush, his dead friends.
Donna remembers the warning the therapist from the Veterans Affairs had given her shortly after the incident, "Don't expect him to be the man he was before the trauma — that person doesn't exist anymore and it's best not to waste time trying to get him back."
Donna had nodded to the woman, but in her heart she knew better than to believe it. Her husband was like a force of nature, indomitable and resilient in a way that was barely human. She knew he would be fine. He had to be. He was her rock and she was already going through so much with Alice, how could she possibly take care of him too?
To her relief, when he finally came home, aside from the cast that ran all the way from his foot to his hip, he was as he always was. No less reserved in demeanor and no more blank in his expression than what Donna was used to.
Until one day, months later, after the cast had already been removed, she looked out the kitchen window and found him sitting on the fire escape, face resting on bent knees. It had started to rain, plastering his hair to his forehead, his shirt to his back, and his skin was mottled a concerning gray-blue.
She didn't go to him. Alice had an appointment that morning for her port placement and Donna really couldn't afford to get her dress wet. He probably wanted to be left alone anyway and a dozen other excuses and justifications and words she had to tell herself to avoid exploring the real reason, which seemed to build inside of her chest like pressure in a tea kettle.
Later, he would tell her about the subway stations, how when he walks past, the squealing of the brakes sounds like the whistle of a projectile. He would tell her how he doesn't sleep, because his brain is convinced that danger is constantly present and when he closes his eyes he can smell it — the hot dirt, the blood on his uniform, the propellant from all the gunfire and explosives.
Listening to him spill out his venerability, Donna doesn't think she'd ever felt so lost. Or so angry. Alice was entering another round of chemo and she needed him. He was supposed to be stronger than this.
The guilt she feels now, for being angry when he was weak, makes her want to drop to her knees and beg him to tell her how to help.
But all she says is "Oh," and sips her wine, because that's how their relationship survives. By turning their backs to each other and growing thicker skins.
Unfazed, Jonathan bends down to kneel at Donna's feet, his fingers undoing the buckles of her ankle straps. "So you fired Jerry," he says, slipping a heel off and setting it aside.
"You know his name?"
"I do. It's important to remember people's names. It's a sign of respect." His eyes slide up to meet hers, and there is that damning look she'd been waiting for, not quite disapproval, but sharp and domineering. "Is there a paper trail?"
"An email."
He tugs the other heel off and runs a callused palm up her calf. "I'll take care of it," he murmurs, gliding his hand further, past her dress hem, to press against the back of her thigh.
Donna's eyes flutter shut. "How?"
She feels his lips at her knee and the gentle brush of his nose further up. He makes a trail, lips dragging against the tender skin of her inner thigh. Donna's hand instinctively drops down to curl through his hair. When he finally speaks his voice is as soft as velvet. "I'll kill him."
Donna's eyes fly open. She tugs him back by the hair to find his face twitch into a shadow of a smile. "That's not funny."
Jonathan straightens, fingers brushing over the curve of her hips as he stands. "Sometimes," he says slowly, "I think you forget who I am." His hand lifts to rest at the small of her back, pressing her against him. His grip is strong and firm and serves as an unspoken reminder that the same strength which holds her, that makes her feel safe and loved, has the ability to break bones. "You think dropping me in New York, dressing me in an extortionately priced three-piece, makes me a different man. But I'm exactly as I always was and I'm going to do whatever it takes to keep you safe." He bends his head down; his forehead touches hers. "If that means Jerry has to end up at the bottom of the Hudson," he whispers, "then so be it. I've done a lot worse."
Donna's brows pull together. Remarks like this should make her feel horror or confusion, but she just feels sad for him. She reaches up, fingers gently tracing the stubble along his jaw. He shuts his eyes and rests his cheek against her palm. She feels immensely satisfied watching him melt into her touch, like she's gained the trust of something wild and untamed. "I know who you are, Jonathan," she tells him. "You're a good man, who only ever did what he was ordered to do."
Jonathan's lids lift and his steady gaze bores down on her. "Yeah. They pointed and I shot. It's the perfect excuse, isn't it?" He steps away, so abruptly she is left grasping at the air. "You should check on the kid."
Donna watches him stalk off with that fluid grace that has always baffled her. She doesn't understand how someone so terse and hard can move like a dancer.
When he's out of sight, she sets her wine glass down and lets out a shuddery breath, trying to convince herself that the bone-deep ache that tears at her heart, that makes her feel ashamed and angry, is still love.
III
Rachel knows wealth. She grew up between Madison and Fifth, among picturesque cobblestone streets and best-in-class restaurants. But there are gradations of the rich, and walking up to Donna's old place of residence – a boutique full-service condominium on the Hudson River – is like strutting up to Buckingham palace. It's in a different league entirely.
The doorman's eyes sweep over Rachel as she follows Harvey up the stone steps toward the front entrance. There is a pistol tucked into the man's waistband. Law enforcement, Rachel assumes, given the barricades set up around the building to keep the media at bay.
Harvey swaggers up to the man. "We're here to see –"
"Jonathan Martell," the officer cuts in, curt and a little bored. "He's not taking interviews and no one is allowed in the building unless authorized, so you can go back to whatever news station or anti-war group freakshow you came from."
Harvey clenches his jaw. Rachel automatically steps forward before he can reply with something arrogant and bad mannered. "We're attorneys with Pearson Specter Litt," she says carefully. "We represent Jonathan's ex-wife. There are some legal matters we need to discuss with him. He's expecting us."
Harvey flashes Rachel a hard look, as if she's sabotaging some elaborate plan he never thought to share with her.
The officer stares at them for a long moment and then pulls out a walkie-talkie. "What's your name?" he asks. She gives it to him, and he speaks briefly to someone over the mic before he motions toward Harvey.
"He's my associate," Rachel says, doing her best to look down her nose at the officer, even as the man towers over her. "Harold Gunderson."
Harvey slides incredulous eyes at her, his brows lifting.
Rachel fights the smile tugging at her lips.
The officer narrows his eyes at the two of them, but before he can question Rachel further a voice breaks through the walkie.
"Let them up."
IV
Alice gazes through the porthole window at the top of her mother's closet. Past the terrace and through the glass patio doors her parents stand together in the kitchen. Their foreheads are touching. Her mother's hand cradles her father's face. It almost looks like they love each other, and for half a heartbeat Alice thinks maybe she is wrong to be scheming against them.
Then her father tears himself away, leaving her mother standing alone looking like he stole all the happiness out of her.
Alice doesn't know a whole lot about love, or marriage, but she thinks she knows enough to know it shouldn't look like this – her mother with her drawn, colorless face, hand twisting and untwisting the diamond on her ring finger as if it is a chain she can't break free of.
Love should look like Harvey, Alice long ago decided. His smiles aren't so hard to earn and he gives happiness instead of stealing it. She used to dread spending Wednesdays with her father because he always made her feel childish and uninteresting, but now that she gets to spend most of the day with Harvey, Wednesday can't come quick enough. It might as well be Christmas morning. Nothing beats it. And she wants her mother, so badly, to have that.
That's why tonight has to be perfect. Because it could be Alice's last chance to get her mother and Harvey to meet each other before stupid cancer snuffs her out.
She turns her attention back to the evening gown collection she'd been riffling through and finds the one she's looking for – a low-necked midnight blue dress with a front slit. Her mother wore it to the theater once, about a year ago. She remembers it because it was right after the doctors found no evidence of disease, the golden ticket to Alice's remission. She watched her mother smile and laugh all night and it was like she was watching her smile and laugh for the very first time. The happiness reached all the way up to her eyes. Alice was hypnotized by her, by how lovely and warm and stunning she was. But she was also somewhat angry that this beautiful, carefree woman was robbed from her for so many years. All the years she could remember, really.
Now, whenever Alice thinks of her mother, she is always in midnight blue, smiling and laughing like nothing bad can ever touch her. So it only makes sense to Alice that it should be this dress that her mother meets her soulmate in.
Alice climbs up another shelf, dangling precariously as she extends her arm toward a silk sleeve. If her hand slips, she falls and probably cracks her head open on the marble floor below.
She isn't worried though. Her hand never slips.
"Alice," her mother calls.
Alice plucks the dress from its hanger and hops down from the wall. She clambers to where her mother is standing just outside the closet doors.
"Didn't we agree you wouldn't climb in my closet anymore?"
"I was only picking a dress for you to wear tonight," Alice says, sulking. She feels worse than ever about the hurtful words she shouted in the kitchen. She wonders why she did it, why she tends to do mean things like that, to her mother mostly, as if she blames her for everything bad that happens.
Her mother's brow lifts skeptically. "To a hockey game?"
Alice shrugs, trying to seem casual despite the fact that her hands are suddenly coated in sweat. She thought she'd have more time to play cupid, and although she's made significant progress with Harvey, her mother's a little more cautious of her antics.
And a little more married.
"The queen of England wore a dress when she dropped the puck at the Canuck's game and you're just as regal as she is."
"Just as regal," her mother repeats slowly, taking the dress from Alice. She holds it out in front of herself to survey.
"Twice as regal," Alice amends.
Her mother grins at that, a quick flash of white teeth. "Well, if I don't end up in the penalty box for my aggressive cheering tonight, they can certainly lock me up for my cleavage."
Alice grabs the dress back and holds it against her own chest. She twirls, flaring the skirt out, and ends with a curtsey. "Harvey will get you out."
"Oh?" A small smile. "I'm one lucky lady if I have a state prosecutor on retainer."
"It's really no trouble for him." Alice bounces on her feet, watching her mother's calculating expression, unable to hide her grin. "Since he'll already be at the game."
Understanding breaks across her mother's face and her smile widens. "That is big news."
"The biggest." Alice does another twirl. Her mother sits down on the bed in front of her, legs criss-crossed, teal dress spilling around her like a little pool. "But there's more!"
"More!" Her mother beams, her eyes wide and bristling with excitement. She's probably putting on a show for Alice, but she eats it up all the same.
"Dad said after the game Harvey can come here for dinner. Can you believe it?"
She frowns. "Alice, I need a little more notice if I'm going to be hosting a dinner."
"You're not gonna lift a finger. Dad and I will take care of everything."
Her frown deepens into something more like puzzlement. "You and your father?"
"We're making burgers, which isn't very fancy, I know, but Harvey's a hotdogs and hamburgers kind of guy and I didn't want us to make something he wouldn't eat. Dad said if we want to spruce it up, we can make patties out of the Elk he killed last fall — that's cool, right? It's ritzy or whatever."
"Very ritzy," her mother says, a little dumbfounded. "And I guess it'd give your father something to talk about."
Right, because her father needs all the help he can get. Alice is certain she's had more impassioned discussions with the duck down by the harbor.
Still.
"Actually, I was thinking that dinner could be out in the garden." Alice lays the dress on the bed beside her mother, smoothing out the wrinkles. "It's a shame that the patio table is so small and only has two chairs," she adds, trying to sound musing rather than utterly devious. "I suppose Dad and I could sit in the kitchen and bond over the meal we prepared together. It would give you and Harvey the space to get to know each other. I think you'd be great friends."
Alice tries desperately not to smirk at her own genius. The garden is her mother's pride and Alice and her father bonding is something she deeply desires. It's the perfect set up. Alice can already see it, the soft glow from the tea light candles flickering on the tabletop as the sun dips below the harbor yard. A rich jazzy melody playing in the background, her mother in her blue dress looking so exquisite Harvey can barely take his eyes off of her. He'd have her laughing all night, and she'd start to feel in her chest something fluttery and magical. Something beautiful and perfect and unyielding. It's not angry or sad, it doesn't hurt. And Alice melts, she just pools into a big gooey puddle, as she watches the two people she loves most in the world fall in love with each other.
Alice is so caught up in her fantasy she doesn't realize her mother has risen from the bed and is staring her down. "Whatever you're planning, you need to get it out of your head right now."
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Alice makes a good show of furrowing her brows in confusion. "I'm not planning anything."
"Of course you're not." She gives Alice a firm, knowing glance. "Now please put the dress back where you got it."
"But—"
"Alice. I know you adore Harvey and I'm sure we'll be great friends, but anything more than that is out of the question."
"Why?"
"I'm married, for a start."
"Only because of me."
Her mother's face goes carefully blank, but a paleness seems to creep across it as if she is shocked that Alice has uncovered what was meant to be some great and devastating secret. She says quietly, "That's not true."
"So you would've gotten married if it wasn't for me?"
"You certainly expedited things," she says, regaining her pose, "but, yes. I love your father."
Maybe it's the sudden desperation Alice feels at her time running out, but something inside of her snaps at these words. "You can't love him!" she shouts. "You're nothing like him! He's cold and mean and—"
"That's enough." Alice tries not to cringe at her mother's severe tone, at the tightness of her lips and the rage and sorrow that fills her eyes. "Harvey may be fun and easygoing but it takes more than that to be a good parent. As a Marine, your father has had to walk into things most people are too afraid to even look at, and that's made him different. It's made him hard and perhaps a little cold. But he is also dependable and patient and incredibly brave. One day you'll understand all the sacrifices he's made for our family and this country, but until then, you need to respect him."
Alice turns away, tears stinging her eyes. Part of her feels ashamed of her behavior. She doesn't think this would be the case if it wasn't for this afternoon, for that crack her father showed in his steely composure when he took her face into his hands and gave her the choice to leave the hospital if she wanted. Even now he's downstairs keeping the return of her cancer a secret, knowing her mother will never forgive him for the betrayal.
He's not so bad. He isn't always kind, and Alice is sort of afraid of him, but she has these moments, small, infrequent glimpses of a different man, the one that maybe her mother fell in love with. And Alice thinks she loves him too, in the sort of rough and clumsy way you love someone you feel like you can never get close to. In the sort of way you crave their embrace with your whole soul yet when it comes it is so foreign and fleeting and stiff it makes your heart strain. She hates him for that. For the hurt and yearning. She hates him and she loves him.
When Alice finally turns back to face her mother she is already halfway across the room, resigned to leave Alice to her mood.
"Mom," she says. Her voice sounds small compared to all the big and heavy things she is carrying around inside her.
Her mother stops at the door and turns to Alice, eyes wary. There is something in her face that Alice can't quite read. She thinks maybe her mother is sad — sad that Alice can't settle for what's patient and dependable.
"I'm sorry," Alice says. "I'll try to be better."
"I hope so."
"I know I'm a pain in the butt."
Her mother sighs, but Alice can see the quiet smile forming on her face. "You are a pain in the butt," she agrees.
Alice nods and glances down, trying to come up with something better to say, something to smooth things over, at least for a little while.
"Just make sure the shoes you pick are silver. Nothing else will go with that dress."
Alice whips her head up, stunned. "You'll wear it!?"
"Not for Harvey," she says firmly. Then she shrugs and adds as she turns to leave, "I'm just not above trying to out dress the queen."
V
Jonathan hangs up the intercom and returns to the kitchen to find his ex-wife exactly where he left her, sitting on the floor scratching the belly of the golden retriever spilling out of her lap, caught somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
"You're so fat," she is telling the dog. "How did you get so fat? What does he feed you?"
"God knows," Jonathan says. "I can't keep her out of the trash."
"You love trash?" Donna coos. "Are you a big, fat trash dog?"
Molly whines and groans, flipping herself over to give Donna a lick across the mouth. Donna lets out a surprised laugh and Molly takes this as an invitation to lunge forward, licking her nose and forehead, her cheek and ear. Donna turns wide, pleading eyes to Jonathan.
"Alright, get off her." He grabs the retriever by the collar and pulls her back onto her haunches. Starved and deprived for years, the dog licks wildly at the air, eager to taste the woman. Sadly, Jonathan understands her disgusting need.
"Who was at the intercom?"
Jonathan offers Donna a hand and pulls her to her feet. "Rachel Zane and Harold Gunderson."
Her brow furrows. "Harold?"
"You don't know him?"
"Oh, I know him," she says, reaching out to scratch Molly behind the ear. "He just hasn't worked with our firm in years."
"Harvey, then?"
Donna shakes her head and idly surveys the space around her. Her eyes lock in on one of Alice's old drawings tacked to the refrigerator. She crosses the kitchen, hand outstretched but she stops herself short as if it's too precious to touch. "Harvey would rather die than use Harold as an alias. He also wouldn't be with Rachel." She must sense his confusion because she adds, "Her father is managing partner of a competing firm. I don't think Harvey has ever fully trusted her."
"Do you trust her?"
She turns to him, a sheen to her eyes, looking as if she's somewhere faraway for a moment. "Yes," she says at last . "I trust Rachel, but I don't know if I trust who she's with. Louis is…unpredictable and Mike — you have to be very careful with what you say. They're not your attorneys. Even if they give you their word, if betraying you means keeping me out of prison, they'll do it."
"You act like that's a bad thing — to have people who care enough about you to dishonor themselves."
She looks down—ashamed? — and then away from him, her lips pressed into a thin line. He watches her take in the area beyond the kitchen. Her eyes sweep the dining room, the glass staircase curving up to the second floor, the living room beyond, hands fidgeting all the while.
Her quiet agitation reminds Jonathan of when they first met. How she had sat at his piano bench in her light blue Sunday school dress, red hair striking against her pale skin, nervously wringing the sheet music in her hands. She had more freckles than he could count and blushed all the way down to her collarbones every time he set his eyes on her. She was stunning, in a pure sort of way, like a flower that is still green and unbloomed, she hadn't yet reached her full potential.
The woman before him now is no longer that shy, blushing girl—full hips, legs nearly as long as his, smooth skin – if he could reach his hand to the sky and pull down divinity it would look like her. And she knows it. Age has given her that confidence.
"I would beg you to redecorate," she says, edging further into the house, each step hesitant and calculated as if she's wading into an icy pool, "but I think it's been so long most of this stuff is back in style."
Jonathan folds his arms across his chest and sags against the countertop beside him, giving her the space to explore. "I guess I have a timeless taste."
"You mean I have timeless taste." She throws him a familiar, wicked grin. "Except for that rug foyer. I'll admit that was a waste of thirty-thousand. Gabbeh fish — what was I thinking?"
Jonathan's lips tug upward. Pain in the ass, he thinks, and yet suddenly he can't help but wonder what it would feel like to run his fingers through her hair again, what her lips would taste like against his, if he can still, with his eyes closed, trace the freckles past where her dress parts at the breast.
A dangerous train of thought to board. He disembarks promptly and forces himself to drag his eyes away. Useless, really, because he knows he'll be right back, drinking her in with quick, helpless glances.
Nature is cruel to make an ex-wife so unbearably attractive.
Jonathan excuses himself to the wine cellar and grabs a bottle of wine for attorneys. When he returns, he finds Donna standing in front of the old faded brown piano at the back of the living room. The Steinway he gave her lessons on. She folds back the heavy lid encasing the keys and gingerly, with one hand, taps out a simple, slow melody on the lower notes. The sound is deep and throbbing. Mourningful.
Jonathan slowly walks over to stand beside her, keeping a respectable distance away. He waits for her to play more, missing her music as much as he missed her voice, but she doesn't continue. She folds the key lid back down and turns to him.
"I haven't told them about Afghanistan."
Jonathan blinks. "Donna."
"I know," she says, refusing to meet his gaze. "God, I know. I was going to tell Harvey everything tonight over dinner, but for some reason we started with Russo and after that he didn't want to hear anymore. Which is just…devastating because Russo is probably one of the least screwed up things I've done in all this."
"He's grieving you. Whatever he envisioned you as, you're someone completely different in his head now. You have to give the man a little slack."
Donna frowns. "Whose side are you on?"
"Am I meant to be on a side?"
"You grieved me too. I did worse to you and yet it's you that came after me tonight. Harvey, he—" She shakes her head. "He wouldn't have done that."
Jonathan searches her gaze. Those dark eyes, the heartbreak in them, hits him like a blow to the stomach. The urge to reach for her, to pull her to him, is so strong he nearly submits to it.
"Sounds like I'm just the bigger idiot," he says softly.
"Probably." She forces a smile. From the soft light of the overhead he can see tears glistening against her cheek. She doesn't bother to wipe them away. "But it's what I needed. You put me before your pride and anger and I know that's not an easy thing to do. Not after everything I've done to you."
She reaches out, fingertips brushing against his. His entire world narrows in on the feel of her. Everything beyond her — before her, after her — is empty and cold.
He hates it.
He hates her. For that intense way she keeps looking at him, for the sense of completion he suddenly feels being near her, for actually how pathetically easy it was for him to go after her tonight.
The private elevator in the foyer chimes. Jonathan steps back, away from that burning touch.
Donna remains where she is, her eyes—such stunning brown-green, a coniferous forest — fixed on him.
I didn't want to lose you.
He almost speaks her words then. Almost says them back to her as sorrow and longing enter her face. But it's not him she longs for, only the life she lost.
"Try to keep it together," he says, leaving her in the living room.
VI
Jonathan is waiting in the foyer when Rachel and Harvey step out of the elevator. He approaches them with lazy grace, each footfall smooth and unhurried. Rachel's skin crawls at his advance, as if she is watching a lion slink toward her.
"How are your socks tonight, Harold?"
Harvey doesn't seem fazed in the slightest by Jonathan's bizarre question. "Dry."
Jonathan nods. "Good. You were so devastated the last time I had you over, it'd be a little annoying to have to relive the experience."
Harvey's jaw clenches at the jab and Rachel feels Jonathan's eyes slide over and fix on her. She meets his stare, those hard, haunted eyes, that intent, unreadable face. And he doesn't look evil or good or anything in between, but simply cold. Distant. Emotionless.
"Say what you came to say," he demands.
Rachel thinks about MIT, about his simultaneous deployment overseas, but finds herself asking instead, "What did you do to get kicked out of the military?"
Curiosity fills that aloof stare. "Going straight for the throat, Miss Zane?"
"Just answer the goddamn question."
Jonathan's attention swings back to Harvey, his face a cool mask again. "Why should I? I'm not your client."
"We're trying to help you."
"Seems a little counterintuitive, doesn't it?" A woman's voice. Soft and casual. A voice Rachel knows so well she doesn't have to glance across the foyer to know who now stands before them. But there she is. Black dress, red hair wet as if she'd been standing in the rain too long, a shaggy golden retriever perched at her heels. Donna doesn't give them the benefit of her attention, her eyes downcast, fixed on her own hand as it strokes through the dog's fur. "After the deal you struck with Mel, helping my ex-husband should be the last thing on your agenda."
Harvey's hand flexes at his side, his throat bobs. "What are you doing here?"
Donna looks up, and when her eyes set on Harvey, Rachel knows without a doubt something significant has changed between the two of them. It is a stare that holds everything Donna has never dared allow herself to express before — that she loves the attorney, that the emotion pains her, that she's near her breaking point with it all.
"I came to warn Jonathan about you."
Harvey's eyes narrow, his stare dipping in a long, searching drag down Donna's torso. Rachel's stomach twists at what he's insinuating with the censure glance.
And yet Donna lets him do it, her posture at ease. When Harvey meets Donna's eyes again, she holds his stare, letting him see the truth in it.
"Jonathan is a culpable co-defendant in your impending federal prosecution," Rachel says in a rush, fearing things are about to go very wrong very quickly with the growing tension in the air. "Mingling with him puts your defense at risk."
Donna's eyes flick over to Rachel. "What defense?" A stark, honest question. With all the evidence of guilt piling up, they have nothing in terms of a defense, and Donna knows it.
"We're working on it." Rachel glances at the chairman standing before her. "That's why we're here. We think your time in the military might be significant."
"It is," Jonathan admits, so nonchalant Rachel is caught off guard. She looks to Harvey but he is too busy staring at Donna to catch the admission.
"You should have talked to me before you came here," Harvey quietly tells the redhead.
"I thought I'd tell you after the fact. See how you like it."
"This isn't a game, Donna. I took Mel's deal because there may not be another way out of this. I had to do what's best for you."
Donna's eyes darken, rage flaring just beneath her cultured calm. "And what about last night?" she asks, moving toward Harvey, her heels clicking loudly against the hardwood. She keeps her voice soft. But there is no warmth in it, no kindness.
Harvey goes wholly still, waiting, wariness flooding his eyes.
Donna leans in close, tipping her head back to look at him as she whispers, "Drunk and sad and barely holding myself together. Was what happened last night what was best for me?"
Harvey opens his mouth to say something, shifting uncomfortably. But in the end he can only shake his head, more as a dismissal than an acknowledgment. Later, his eyes seem to say. Let's have this conversation later.
Donna nods as if that is exactly the answer she had expected. Then she turns to Jonathan and all the emotion dies out on her face.
"What the hell are you doing?" the chairman asks.
Donna recoils. "I—"
"You lied to him. You manipulated him. You put his career in jeopardy. And he still wants to help you." Jonathan doesn't bother to acknowledge the agony that ripples across Donna's face, barreling on, "You need to check your priorities, Donna, or you may as well call up the AG and have him come pick your sorry ass—"
"One more word to her," Harvey says. "And I'll make you regret it."
Rachel tries not to cringe at the challenge in Harvey's voice. Especially when Jonathan smiles, easing the severity of his features with a mouth full of perfect white teeth and dimples. In the brief time Rachel's known the chairman, he's never looked more human — or more delighted, as if he's been aching for the challenge.
Apparently Donna isn't too concerned about the two men staring each other down because she stalks off, heading toward the elevator.
Harvey reaches around and grabs Donna by the wrist as she passes him. "You can't leave."
Donna stops and stares down at the hand clasped around her, brows drawn in confusion. "Why? What's changed between dinner and now?" She turns her stare up to Harvey. "It can't be because I'm hurting or afraid or anything about me really, so what is it? Jealousy?"
For a heartbeat they just stare at each other, something wordless and cryptic passing between them. Finally Harvey says, "The NYPD are working on a no-bail warrant for your arrest. They could be at your apartment right now for all I know."
Donna lets out a soft, incredulous laugh. Her expression falters, bravado leaking away. She covers her mouth with her free hand as if to stifle a sob.
"You know this without a doubt?" Jonathan asks. Rachel swears the chairman's gone pale.
"I heard it straight from Anita Gibbs' mouth."
"No bail," Rachel whispers, stunned. "Why?"
Harvey stares Jonathan down. "Good question. Jonathan gets bail and Donna doesn't. How does that work?"
"It's the same reason why I was promoted to COO," Donna says, stepping away from Harvey's lingering grasp, somehow having regained her poise. "And why Jonathan took the plea deal in the first place. They're just using me and I'm not going to be a part of it anymore. And I'm sure as hell not going to stand around agonizing about where this is all headed."
Donna turns back to the elevator, and all Rachel can think is plea deal? What plea deal?
"Donna." Harvey follows closely at her heels. "You can't run from this."
"I'm not running from anything." She hits the call for the elevator and turns to Harvey. "I want it to be over."
Harvey stops mid step as if Donna's words have physically slammed into him.
"I want it to be over and done with," she continues softly. "The arrest, the trial, the constant arguing with each other — all of it."
"What are you saying?" Harvey slowly edges forward. "You want to give up? They haven't even arraigned you yet. We don't know what the official charges are. If your indictment looks anything like Jonathan's you could be spending the rest of your life in prison. Is that what you want?"
The elevator doors whisk open and without responding Donna steps inside. Beside Rachel, Jonathan moves, so quickly she doesn't register it until he's nearly at Harvey's side.
Harvey catches the closing elevator doors with a hand and says to Donna, "What would Alice think about you, if she could see you right now?"
Jonathan stills. Rachel stops breathing. Donna simply looks up at Harvey and blinks.
"She didn't get the chance to live out the rest of her life," Harvey continues. "How do you think she'd feel about you giving up on yours?"
Donna stares at Harvey for a long time. Then, with an admission so broken and so miserable it's almost too much for Rachel to endure, Donna says, "She'd be ashamed of me."
Harvey steps toward the redhead. "Don't you think we should fix that?"
Donna shakes her head, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. "What is there to fix, Harvey? She's dead. That's the only good thing about all of this, I don't have to worry about failing her anymore."
"What about failing Rachel? Or Mike? Louis? Your parents? What about the hundreds—god, probably thousands of other people that love you and care about you all over this city? If you can't do it for yourself, at least do it for them."
Donna doesn't respond, and instead wraps her arms around herself and lets the tears fall. To Rachel's shock Harvey takes her into his arms and whispers something she can't hear, but she knows what he's saying. Do it for me.
Jonathan turns away from the scene and stalks out, disappearing into the kitchen. After a harrowing moment of listening to Donna's quiet sobs, Rachel reluctantly follows, giving the two space to try and fix whatever is broken between them —within them— if that's even possible.
When Rachel rounds the corner, the chairman is waiting for her.
"Let's talk about this discharge, then," he says.
A/N: I guess I'll stop apologizing for how long it takes me to update. Thank you for your patience and continued support. And thank you to my beta, Kate, you're the best!