Chapter II

It's been two weeks and nothing had changed, except that it did.

He still treats her like the flirt he is and she still parodies every one of his comments without fail. He makes sure though, that every now and then he subtly lets slip that he does care.

About her. About them. About the baby he's in no way ready for but for her he thinks he might be willing to try.

But first and foremost he finds that he is definitely not ready to lose her in any way and so he doesn't push. He knows that if he convinces her to give in now, they won't last.

It doesn't matter how much he likes her - how much he had liked her ever since they started working together - or that she seems to like him back just as much. It doesn't even matter that he thinks he might be falling for her. The fact that he's not ready for a relationship and they are not ready for a child is what keeps him from simply kissing her and seeing where it leads.

It's a reaction to them maybe becoming parents and they both know what's going to happen when they realize they rushed into this relationship solely on the fact.

What he does dare to do is treat her to lunch every day. When he's out of the office at lunch time he has her favorites delivered to her without fail. And when he's in, he drags her away from her desk long enough to make sure he's not only interested in her well-being because she is currently pregnant.

When week three comes around, he asks her to have dinner with him.

She declines immediately.

She can deal with an occasional lunch. She thinks she can even deal with an everyday lunch. But dinner is too formal. Dinner sounds too much like they need it to lead somewhere.

They had spent their lunches getting to know each other on a more personal level which, Donna is pretty sure, already constitutes several dates. It's different though, she pretends at least in her head, that those are nothing more than typical working lunches. She has not told him about any decision she might or might not have reached already in regard to the baby news.

She fears dinner will be the moment she needs to start doing just that.

When he asks her again, exactly one week later, she takes a moment longer to tell him no. She doesn't want to tell him no, but she still knows she needs to. All of this is just so damn freaking confusing, not knowing which emotions stem from lingering feelings and which ones are being brought up due to the circumstances.

She looks at his face, sees his eyes fall when she declines his offer and she thinks she does see genuine affection for her, not their situation. She turns her gaze back onto her computer screen, not even long enough to register what she's actually looking at, then she looks up at him again.

"Why don't you come over to my place tonight and we can talk?" It's the most she can offer right now. If she will ever accept one of his dinner invitations in the future, there needs to be conversations held beforehand. She gives a small smile when she watches his eyes light up again but holds up a hand to stop him when he tries to speak. "No, don't answer"

She doesn't want a spur of the moment promise he might regret later when he had time away from her and thought this whole invitation over. She'd rather not have him show up at all, confirming him to really not be ready than to not have him show up after saying he would and confirming him to be immature on top of it. Or worse yet, have him show up solely at the obligation of said promise and ruin not only what they could have but what they already did.

#

He knocks on her door an hour after she had left work. He's dressed more casually than throughout the day, telling her that he couldn't have left the office long after she did.

With an almost shy smile she lets him into her apartment. And she's glad he came, but now that he's actually here she has no idea what to do with it. The last time he stepped into her home they left memorable moments halfway through the apartment before emerging from the bedroom only after the next day had already long begun.

In a way, it's only fitting for them, that the next time she invites him in is to talk about the prominent consequences of said encounter.

She tries to hold back a laugh when the thought enters her mind, but he catches it nonetheless.

"What?" He asks, passing her in the hallway and watching her close the door behind him.

"Nothing" She deflects. He won't let her though. Stares at her until she gives in. "I was just thinking about how messed up we were"

"In a good way, though. Right?" He's putting on his usual smirk and bravado but she can easily recognize the nervousness behind his eyes.

"The best" She outright laughs and leads him over to the living room.

She offers him something to drink, mainly to drag out the conversation she wants to have but at the same time dreads. He readily accepts, almost getting up and following her to the kitchen but then he notices her hands fidgeting with the hem of her oversized shirt. He leans back into the couch and decides to give her this moment of solitude to calm herself down.

When she walks back in with their drinks in hand he shoves his phone back into his back pocket. "Dinner will be here in ten minutes"

She stops, his glass hanging mid-air between the two of them, contemplating him for a long minute. "Harvey…" She sighs, because this is exactly what she didn't want.

He softly interrupts. "Listen, this is not a dinner" She looks at him as if he lost his mind and he hurries to explain before she kicks him out for being stupid. "Forcing stuff never helps, so we don't force this conversation either. We both know that is what I'm here for tonight. We're also way too wound up to do this properly" He searches her eyes for a moment, making sure he hasn't misread the whole situation. At her slight nod, he continues. "What I am proposing is some good food, light conversation. Hell, maybe even one of those crappy movies you love so much, whatever helps us relax. Let us progress naturally towards the heavier topics."

When he's done his eyes are almost pleading with her to agree, but it isn't necessary. She doesn't want a date, with fancy dress up and talk about a shared future with or without a baby. At least not right now.

But what he's proposing sounds a lot like their lunches, just with less people around. They can talk about work, about the new book she's read or the action movie he recently watched. They can be themselves and they can gradually relax enough to make talking about why he's there in the first place easier on both of them. Plus, she would rather enjoy putting him through two hours of cheesy romance just to annoy him.

#

"Are we finally ready to admit that these movies are stupidly boring?" He jabs when she lifts her head from his shoulder and stretches next to him.

After dinner had arrived, they settled comfortably on her couch. Ten minutes in, she cleverly weaseled the movie into the conversation. He had no choice but to agree, even if he knew, that she was doing this to mess with him. In the following forty-five minutes, she's fallen asleep twice during the same movie.

"I promise, you will never hear me say that" She counters. She settles back against his side, head on his shoulder, his arm draped over hers. It's new, something they haven't done before, but it hadn't felt awkward yet. In fact, she'd found relatively soon she quite liked it. Enough to feel so comfortable as to fall asleep on him twice.

He watches the TV screen intently, not daring to look at the woman beside him, when he answers. "We have our whole lives for me to make you break that one" He does feel her smile into his shoulder though.

She lets the credits roll all the way to the end before she reaches for the remote and turns the TV off. It leaves them in semi-darkness. She likes it this way. Feels it makes it easier to say what she has to say.

"Abortion is off the table" She finally mumbles into the fabric of his shirt where her head is still resting against his shoulder. She doesn't elaborate, doesn't tell him if she's waited too long or if it was her decision. He doesn't ask, but no matter what, she's almost sure she hears a relieved sigh come through his lips.

She feels lighter all of a sudden, having said it. The whole time she had tried to imagine his reaction to her proclamation. She couldn't figure out, which one would terrify her the most.
But now that he knew, she knows his reaction is the only one she has secretly been hoping for.

"You thinking about adoption?" The hand on her shoulder absently plays with strands of her hair and she can feel the nervousness about her answer radiate off of him in waves.

"Maybe" She answers honestly. It had been very prominently on her mind after she had ruled out abortion. At least until tonight. "Why don't we let the next couple of weeks go by like the last ones and you'll help make a decision on that"

He turns his head and drops a soft kiss against her head she didn't know she had been craving. This is all so simple right now, and she is afraid, that this is exactly what will break them sooner or later, but she doesn't want to care.

He's here, he's glad that she's open to keeping their baby and he doesn't push for more than sitting here with her, watching movies and talking. She thinks maybe did grow up a bit the last few weeks.