It's blinding cold outside.

He should have worn gloves.

That's his mantra as he makes his way towards the coffee cart guy, determined and pointed walk cutting off all the onlookers who know the secret and raising question to those who don't. The quiet busyness of the street illuminates in the setting sun, too late in the day for people to be going home from work and too early in the day for people to be filing out into the nightlife. He bites the bullet anyway, not really caring who or what sees, and crosses the street without so much as a glance behind him.

He's tripped up, hot under the brow and wrists seemingly tied, to what he doesn't know. The reality of the situation hasn't yet reared its ugly head, the tempestuous remainder of an unworked Saturday latching on to the unfathomable readiness to give up entirely and just head home. He wants to leave the aftermath to a later date as disorganization takes over his workspace without the promise of tidiness before his arrival come Monday morning.

He needs to find a replacement.

With that thought he nearly trips on the curb, his feet heavier than he remembers them being and the concrete leading to the sidewalk much higher than his memory obliges. Perhaps he'd had one too many scotches upstairs before deciding they didn't do enough numbing to appease him so it serves him right all in all. But that doesn't stifle the need to push his transgressions down, pressing a paperweight on them until he can battle those damned demons in the reverberation of the fall. It's still burning anyway.

Acquiring an ounce from the putz that is caddy-corner from the firm's front doors, he turns on his heels and returns to his most prominent home, forgets that the pristine condo he lives in alone even exists. What difference does it make? They're both made of glass anyway. It's that thought that brings him the cool night chill, the one that settles into his bones and brings the sweet sound of a muted symphony to his mind.

He's getting fucked up.

That'll make the silent symphony stop playing that detestable tune.

He struts into Jessica's office, ounce in his pocket, fingers cold and stiff as she sits on her couch nursing a presumably innocent cup of tea. He hadn't passed a single soul on his way to her office, but he had passed Donna's new home, still no sign of her move, and he thought of her for a moment too long. He finds the darkest corner in Jessica's couch so she can't see the tears welling in his eyes, vision blurred as his partner pours another cup of tea.

"I'd offer you a cup but I'm not really in a giving mood," she justifies.

He huffs then but not because he actually wants a cup. He feels the sentiments of her statement finding residence on his shoulders and he nearly laughs at the sardonicism of them converging here in this time, this place, for the same reason but not really the same reason. Meanwhile the only named partner absent is the one who has everything.

"Actually," he starts, guise of his remittal sleeping on his tongue, "I brought you a present for once."

She stares at him in disbelief? like the notion is unheard of. He may not be notorious for his generosity, but his gifts are always exactly what happen to be needed when he does come allotting them. Jessica wavers in her posture and he supposes that she's bracing herself for a class 5 retcon.

"I'm almost scared to ask, Harvey," she admits. Her voice is tired like Jeff Malone took the life out of her. Harvey thinks that he'll kill Jeff with his bare hands.

He grunts as he fishes into his pocket for her belated breakup present and he tosses it onto the couch in the space between them. He says, "To take the edge off."

Harvey feels the older woman studying him for a moment like he's so far off the mark that she is actually thinking about peeling his name off of the wall. That would make for a great headliner Best Closer in New York City Suffers Two of the Biggest Losses of His Career in a 24-hr Period. He can see it now: no Donna, no firm, no point. He's never been a fan of threesomes and the last one directly correlates with either of the first two.

Jessica rolls her neck, settling her teacup onto the saucer then the pair onto the couch cushion beside the coffee cart guy's product. She looks like she's gearing up for something but he knows that it's a battle neither of them could be bothered to engage in at the moment. He supposes she could ask but then she'd actually get an answer. He really doesn't think she wants to know at the moment.

"You know what," he says suddenly, "Forget I was ever here."

He reaches for the ounce and pushes himself off of the couch when she says, "Sit your ass down, Boy."

"I thought you'd never ask," he replies, sorting through the contents of the bag. She lightly shakes her head and extends a hand. She's always been better at rolling the joint anyway.

In retrospect, the puff puff pass concept had been less than helpful in clearing his mind. He looks to his right at Jessica who is staring straight ahead. Her posture matches his but lacks the weight on her shoulders. He realizes then that all of her pain is internalized while his is essentially displayed for all to see.

They both have a piece of them missing, an obvious removal from the intricate workings of their everyday lives. Harvey supposes that Jessica's career doesn't hinge on her missing puzzle piece like his does, but it's left an ache in her heart that she doesn't know how to forget. He doesn't know how to admit that he's feeling the same way.

To think, the person he's always trusted and turned to in times of need has left him. Maybe he's been too stupid to notice that he's not given her as much as she's given him, but he wasn't really aware that she was discontented with their relationship until she was removing herself from it. It probably took some courage on her part, he gets that, but she's always been the strong one. She's been his ever-present guide in his working life, even his personal life at times.

The clarity comes in at the moment there's a loud noise outside of Jessica's office. He and his partner look at each other like they need reassurance the other actually heard the noise, perplexed and slightly paranoid. He lifts his hand to her gesturing for her to stay as he stands, leaving his suit jacket on the arm of the couch, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his vest still buttoned, and he ventures out into the hallway.

His feet carry him in the direction of the noise until he stops, stock still at the sight of red. Her red hair curtains her face from being seen, her jacket draped over the cubicle wall as she unpacks and moves about around her new room. He considers leaving her to it, letting her deal with the tragedy all on her own.

His judgment gets the better of him and he approaches the clattering, feet heavy on the floor as he shuffles towards her. He leans against the cubicle wall, hands wrapping around the felt on either side of her jacket, and looks at what she's doing. She's unpacking her box of things and it feels like a punch to the gut, the hardest he's ever been hit before.

"Hey," she says gently, not looking at him.

"Hey," he returns, the breath evading his lungs. He swallows. He tries to think of something he could say to get her to change her mind. Not even his love can keep her near. He says, "Do you need any help?"

She lifts her gaze to his then, her eyes as watery as his. She smiles carefully, like she's fragile, like she didn't expect to see him and wasn't quite prepared for this very moment. She lightly shakes her head.

His lips part in response, momentarily examining her cubicle and how different and out of sorts it looks. It doesn't look right, doesn't feel right. The walls are in all the wrong places and her desk faces Louis' office. Harvey thinks she deserves privacy, a guard to protect her from having to stare at Louis all day. He knows that they are friends, that they have a relationship that he doesn't understand and he's never tried to, but even he was kind enough to give her that luxury.

"What about your chair? Do you want me to grab that for you?" Her chin tilts downward as she continues unpacking her box – a few figurines, a picture of her nieces and nephews that she usually keeps hidden in a desk drawer beside the pictures they drew for her, her office supplies, the can opener. His eyes are burning, the muscles in his neck tensing because that's their thing and they're supposed to do it before every trial. "What about our pre-trial ritual?"

"You're not going to trial," she reaffirms, "But if you somehow find yourself facing that problem, come find me. We'll still do our thing."

"Thank god that's not over," he says. He hadn't even thought it before he'd said it. In fact, when his own voice reached his ears is the moment he realized the words were even coming out of his mouth. If it weren't for her sharpening gaze, he'd suspect that maybe he'd never really said it at all and he'd simply thought it. "I didn't mean to say that."

"You're high," she says with a small laugh, like it explains everything.

He shrugs with one shoulder. "Jessica needed a pick me up after the week she's had."

She nods knowingly but accepts his word as fact. She does this sometimes, allows him to deflect and shoulder the problem on someone else's shoulders. It tells him that it's still too fresh for her, if she's not ready to talk about it and she's going to give him a pass. She would usually press him where it hurts until he breaks, until he tells her everything she wants to know.

She places the can opener in the drawer beside the picture and the drawings, closing it and shutting away all of the things she has in her life but doesn't want to deal with. He wonders if the can opener represents him now, if it's always represented him. He really doesn't want her to put him in a drawer and hide him away.

"Harvey," she says then.

His name on her lips is more non-committal than he wishes it were. He knows she isn't going anywhere with it, that she's trying to be sensitive to the situation that cuts them both deep. They lock eyes again and she nearly loses it right then. He swallows to hold himself together.

He does something to distract himself, to distract her, from the abrasiveness of the moment, and reaches into his pocket for his phone. He says, "I'm hungry. Are you hungry? I'll order from that shitty Thai place you like."

"I think," she starts, hesitates for a moment too long for his liking and he knows then that she's slipping right through his fingers; she swallows, brushes her hair out of her face, and says, "It's probably best if we don't do this tonight with you stoned and me, well, I wish I had a drink-"

"I have some of that, too, you know," he interjects. Her mouth closes as she nods, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"Harvey," she says so softly that he thinks his mind is playing tricks on him, "We shouldn't. The wounds are still fresh. Let's not pour salt on them just yet."

"You're right," he says. He forces a smile onto his face and lightly taps on the plastic of her cubicle wall. He puts his phone back into his pocket and pushes back onto his heel, putting some distance between them. "Let me know if you need anything, okay?"

"You'll be the first person I call," she replies.

He finds himself praying to a god he isn't even sure exists that it's the truth.

He goes back to his office and pours two glasses of scotch in hopes that she'll change her mind when she sees him. He sees her moving down the hall, her jacket draped over her arm, her black pants tight on her legs and her top swinging with every calculated step she makes. He goes to the doorway of his office, a glass in each hand, and leans against the thin transparent wall there.

She sees him and slows her strut, her confidence wavering. She stops, her heels digging into the bouncy carpet about fifteen feet away. He hears her sigh in resignation as she closes the gap between them. He extends the glass of scotch to her, a good three feet between them, and she takes it. Wordlessly, she slips passed him into his office and he follows closely behind her.

She tilts the glass in his direction in a symbolic cheers motion and takes a drink from it. He follows her lead and takes a drink from his own glass, the scotch sticking to his tongue and not quite quenching his cottonmouth. He removes the glass from his slightly parted lips and dangles the remainder of it between his fingers, his hands falling to his side. She hugs the glass to her face.

She says, "You're going to be okay, Harvey."

He expels a breath through his nose, fixing her with his gaze, his jaw clenching as he silently disagrees with her. He isn't going to be okay. She is his everything and now he doesn't have her anymore. Maybe she's giving this to him, this non-working evening where they happen to be in the same place at the same time like fate tricked them into being together. How is he supposed to go on?

"You're just right down the hall," he reasons. She takes another gulp of the amber liquid; her glass appears large in her hand like it doesn't belong. Maybe she's never really belonged in this office, in this space, ten feet away. He's never really been able to give her what she needs. "I hope Louis treats you better than I did."

"I never really knew I wanted you to," she says. Her admission echoes in his hazy brain, piercing his heart with brevity, and he feels like a switch has flipped inside of him. She hasn't been pining for him, not consciously, she's just been prioritizing him and she isn't going to be doing that anymore. She nods slowly. "I should go."

She sets her glass down on the coffee table and moves to leave, but he can't let her. He reaches out with his left hand, his fingers tight together as he lightly touches her wrist. She stops beneath his touch, his left shoulder lining up with hers. He doesn't know what to say to make her stay, to make her stop leaving him.

He tilts his chin downward, his lips pursed tightly together as his gaze lines up with hers. Her eyebrows knit together and he knows she's doing two things at once: questioning him and challenging him. He absently licks his lips, eyes tracing her face in an attempt to remember her in this moment, vulnerability in her expression. He swallows and closes the space between them.

He kisses her then, her lips slightly parted like she was expecting him to do anything but that, and her mouth moves on autopilot. He drops the glass in his hand, moving it to cup her cheek, and deepens the kiss. She places her hand against his chest but doesn't push him away. His tongue flits out against her lip, sliding over the surface until her tongue touches his. She tastes like scotch and raspberries.

It's then that she pulls away and he thinks she must have the good sense to know when enough is enough. She tilts her gaze away from his, hand rising to her lips. She pushes her palm across her mouth, wiping away the remnants of him. He looks to the floor at the spilled liquid staining the carpet. He can't look at her, can't utter a word.

So she does it for him. She says, "I have to go."

All he can do is look at her retreating form.

He doesn't know why he kissed her.

In the moment, it didn't even seem like the best idea, he just didn't know of any other way to make her stay. He's hurt and angry. It's taking everything in him to keep from showing his ass but he knows being a dick to her won't accomplish anything. It will only succeed in pushing her away, which is the last thing that he wants.

He follows her path to the elevator lobby, limbs heavy and thoughts still fuzzy. He thinks of her red hair following close behind her with every step she had taken, rightfully running away from him. The memory of her appearance fades into the shadows of the dim lights, engulfing her as the night takes her away from him.

He doesn't know what he's expecting to find when he does make it to the elevator, but she's already gone, carried far away from him. He doesn't know when he'll see her again, doesn't know what to say when he does. He gives up retracing her steps, returning back through the path of long hallways towards Jessica's office.

He pauses at Donna's new desk. Everything is placed just so how she likes it, but it looks dull like she doesn't deserve to live there – like no one deserves to live there. He thinks that maybe flowers could bring a familiarity, a breath of life. He remembers the cactus sitting on the island in his kitchen at home. He could return the favor.

He pushes the thought away and continues to Jessica's office. He rounds the corner though and spots her sprawled out on her couch, using his jacket to shield her arms from the breeze. He allows it thinking that her loss has taken everything out of her, that he can relate to how she feels now more than ever.

He retires to his own office, to his own couch where he leaves all of his messes for tomorrow.