"I don't give a shit if he buys it or not. And before you go on your little trip, you are going to go to him with your tail between your legs, and tell him you are one hundred percent wrong."

Jessica had turned on her heel and stalked out of his apartment at that, slamming the door behind her in an unsubtle reinforcement of her anger at him. And it's not like there hadn't been a lot to choose from to justify that anger - hitting Louis, throwing Louis through a coffee table, picking a fight with just about everyone who walked into his office, being a general asshole to Donna whenever she got within ten feet of him, and then the way he'd just spoken to her…

Christ, he'd been cocky. The kind of cocky he conjured up when he knew, deep down, he was in the wrong; a brittle, insecure sarcasm, designed to sting harshly at anyone around him who was threatening to get too close to the panic lurking beneath the surface.

And it was only just beneath the surface. He was increasingly aware of how close… everything… was to spilling over into plain sight these days. He knew - at least he's been told - that he needed to deal with whatever was going on in his head.

He couldn't admit, even to himself, that the thought of doing that, of actually working through what was going wrong and how he'd managed to back himself into such a tight corner, filled him with the kind of fear that snaps you awake at night, gasping shallowly into the darkness. He knew this because it already had. More than once. Not just since Donna had left him, either - he had learned the hard way that going to bed thinking too closely about his mother, or the deception he and Mike were dangling under everybody's noses, or whatever shit he'd pulled to scrape out of trouble this week, would jolt him upright in the moonlight, bathed in sweat, hand grasping blindly for the light. He hated it.

And so, tonight he went to anger instead, because he always, always went to anger. Taut-shouldered, self righteous and self pitying anger, stewed in several glasses of scotch, knocked back more for their effect than their flavour. He's jumpy, twitchy, his leg bouncing against the couch and his shaking fingers - wringing out the last of their adrenaline from earlier - sloshing whisky around the rim of his glass. His mind works at a full, dark tilt - turning over every torturous, unfair second since Donna told him she loved him, walked away from his desk, and triggered off a nuclear bomb in his head. He's not interested in self reflection, though. He's mostly justifying to himself why this is all Jessica's fault. Or Louis's fault. Or Donna's fault.

He finishes his glass, grimacing, and pours another. He should be better than what he's thinking, but he doesn't want to be. This way, he doesn't have to admit that, really, this whole shit show is his fault anyway. And so he doesn't think about lying to Louis, about shutting Donna out, about taking advantage of Jessica's trust in him.

Mostly, though, he doesn't think about the fact that he's actively skirting around the edges of another panic attack. Doesn't think about the fact that so far, they've been contained to the office, triggered by other people, and having one alone in his own home… well that would mean something was deeply, troublingly wrong with him, and what the hell would he do then?

An insistent knocking snaps him back to the present. He blinks, twice, looks towards the door, thinks Jessica, not again. She must have thought of a few more things to scream at him about.

He heaves a breath from his lungs as he rises, loosening his tie as he walks down the hallway, and squares his shoulders for round two, yanking the door open with his jaw already set -

- and stares for a second. "I … what are you doing here?"

"Well, I figured I'd come and see how your holiday is going." Donna doesn't wait for an invite, doesn't even wait for him to step back, just pushes past him into the entrance, jostling him backwards as she does. "And I wanted to make sure you were here and not in a cab back to the office to have it out with Louis again."

How the hell can she still do that?

In the depths of self pity, it strikes him as incredibly unfair that she can up and walk away from him like the last twelve years didn't mean anything, like he didn't mean anything - and then show up at his door, having barely spoken to him for weeks, and somehow still know exactly what he's thinking at any given time.

"Donna…"

"Don't 'Donna' me," she snaps, and she turns the full force of her righteous anger on him. He feels himself take a step back as she rounds on him. "How could you do that, Harvey? Louis is family. You lied to him, and I told you this would happen, and you ignored me. You hurt his sister, you've hurt him, and I told you -"

"Oh come on Donna," he interrupts, spreading his arms as if she's being unreasonable. "You don't get to do that anymore."

"Do what anymore?"

"Talk to me like I'm some fucking idiot who needs his hand held every time he has to have a conversation with someone," he spits. "You left my desk. You left my office. You left me." His words carry a depth of hurt that makes her freeze in place, but he's got his mind around his words now and he thinks, fuck it. "You don't get to tell me what I need to do, or make my emotional decisions for me, or try and aim me in the right direction anymore. I'm the asshole, okay? There, I said it. But you don't get to sidestep that part of me anymore. You just have to deal with it, like everyone else."

Donna lifts her hands to him in exasperation. "Harvey, this isn't about me dealing with you and it isn't about you feeling sorry for yourself and embracing being a piece of shit. You hit Louis!"

"He shoved me," he snaps, and he thinks they both know how fragile an excuse that is, even propped up by all his rage.

"Christ Harvey, what are you even talking about? You think that justifies what you did? It's Louis. He couldn't win a fight with you if he had a fucking shotgun." He instinctively steps back as she moves towards him, because she's got him and they both know it, and for whatever reason she's decided not to let him off the hook this time. Maybe it's because she's doing her job defending Louis, maybe it's because some space from him has given her a kind of clarity on his bullshit that she didn't have before, or maybe it's because she knows him far, far too well and she's just allowing him to see just how little he's ever managed to actually get past her. "You're lucky Jessica hasn't fired you. You're lucky Louis hasn't pressed charges. Dammit Harvey, you're lucky the cops aren't here cuffing you right now. What's going on with you?"

She stares, waiting for his answer, and her eyes narrow when nothing comes. Harvey's mouth has suddenly gone dry, and his shoulders pull back, drawn and taut. Nobody else in the world would have noticed. But she takes in this subtle change like he had a neon sign flashing over his head, takes a step towards him. "Harvey."

It's too much, much too much, and she's talking but he can't grab onto it - he only feels the walls closing in, the ringing in his ears rising, his heart hammering against his chest.

shit shit not now please not now

He panics as he feels his body break out in a cold sweat. He hates the sweat, the flash of bright damp across his skin. It's the sign of the tipping point, the no-return of the physical takeover of his body against his will. He tries to breathe through it as it crackles through his body; fails. He feels his legs shaking, suddenly inadequate to bear the weight of his body.

He lifts a hand up defensively; tries to stop her, tries to breathe. He's lightheaded, his stomach gripping his throat. "Donna…"

She's dropped her voice now, confusion and worry painting over her anger. "Harvey, are you okay?"

He shakes his head, says he's fine, and that's about all he can manage before all the edges of the room go hazy and his hearing blinks out behind the ringing all together. He reaches out for the kitchen bench to steady himself. The world around him narrows to a pinprick, and he's only dimly aware of Donna, right beside him, taking the glass from him, her other hand reaching for his arm. He squeezes his eyes shut against the spinning of the world, his entire being focused on the singular goal of staying conscious. He thinks about asking for water, tries hard to catch a full breath -

- and then he blinks and he's in the bathroom, his knees on the ground and heaving his guts into the toilet, panic attack in full control, assaulting his mind as well as his body as he gasps for air in between gags. He tries and fails to run through the calming techniques he's been told are meant to help and never do. Taking note of how the porcelain feels under his hands isn't fucking centering, it's just cold and slick with his sweat and reminds him that his heart is trying to claw it's way out of his mouth. Observing seven things around him is goddamn difficult when the ground keeps threatening to swim up and swallow him whole.

It's unending, unrelenting, and he wonders if he'll ever feel human again and not like a man on the run, hostage to the whims of his brain and body, and it can't have lasted for more than half an hour but it feels like an eternity.

God help him, it's unbearable.

And yet all along, she is there, her touch tethering him to reality. She is calm, unhurried, patient. She crouches next to him on the floor of his bathroom, conjures a damp cloth from somewhere and lays it across the back of his neck. And she waits with him, massaging her palm slowly and firmly over the damp of his shirt, along his spine, and up to the curve of his shoulders.

It's the only thing that helps.

A thousand years after he opened the door to Donna, he finally opens his eyes, manages to focus, and doesn't feel like both the the ground and his blood pressure are both going to drop out underneath him. He works on slowing his breathing, leaning his arm and forehead against the rim of the toilet, and he feels Donna's hand at the back of his neck, scratching the base of his hairline, soothing him as she reaches up with the other hand to pull the toilet chain.

"Okay?" she murmurs.

"Fucking perfect," he manages, and he thinks he can feel her smile in the tips of her fingers. He turns his head slightly, she's looking at him and he can't quite read what's going on behind her eyes. There is a need to ask questions sitting there, but she looks like she's wrestling with the decision to voice them or not.

"Panic attack?" she asks finally, simply.

Harvey nods, and she says, "not your first." It isn't a question, but he can hear her asking why he hasn't said anything to her.

"Sorry," he says, and he's not sure if it's an apology for falling backwards off a cliff in front or her or for the twelve years she's had to spend personally edging him back from it in the first place. Air is coming back into his lungs, but the tightness in his chest releasing itself shakes something loose in him. He feels his breath rattle in his throat, and it sounds too close to crying, but he's used to catching those feelings and tucking them away before they risk being found out by anybody. He does it again now, instinctively.

But once again, he's not fooling Donna. Her hand cups his cheek, turns his face towards her. There's a moment where her eyes meet his and she looks into him and knows, and then her arms are around his chest and shoulders and he's leaning into her instead, and he's not crying but he lets the relief was through his bones and it feels like something akin to peace.

She's still here.

She gives him a moment, rubs her hand over his back, asks if he can stand. He takes a second to brace himself, and when he nods, she helps him up, directs him to his shower, says she'll be right outside. She drapes his robe over the towel rack, perches his toothbrush and toothpaste on the sink for him before she leaves, looks back at him as she closes the door, and he has absolutely no idea how he's meant to feel about any of this. So he strips, plunges his head under the stream, leans his forehead against the damp tile, and blows a tired breath against the wall.

—

He exits, finally, on weary but steady legs. He's left his hair damp, hoping the slight chill it provides will keep him grounded, stop him triggering off again.

She's waiting, perched on the edge of his bed, thumbing through some book he's never read but keeps on his bookshelf because that's what you do with a bookshelf.

Donna sitting on his bed, Harvey emerging from a shower - both of them sharing his home like it wasn't just his - this was a fantasy he'd let himself indulge in now and then. It usually involved less of him being gripped by mental and physical breakdowns and more of him kissing her breathless, pinning her to the bed, shucking his robe, and sliding into her body with the ease with which she'd slid into his soul. Here though, she's all concern and there's no risk his fantasy is going to barge it's way into reality.

The thought Christ, this whole evening is a fucking embarrassment crossed his mind, but the mortification he should have felt didn't bubble up. Instead, he just felt anchored. He'd nearly floated off into oblivion, and she'd reached out and yanked him back.

She looks up, stands, offers him that smile she has that could calm a tornado, asks how he's going.

He starts to say he's okay, tries to minimise what just happened, to brush it off or make a joke, but she's looking at him wide open and he feels like there's no part of him that isn't laid bare. So instead he touches a finger to his temple, says, "I don't really know what's going on in here, Donna," and hears his voice break, just a little.

She steps to him, lays her palm flat against his heart. "You mean in here?" she asks. She's always worried about his heart. She seems to be under the impression that he's not an irredeemable fuck up. He opens his mouth, but she stops him, says "your brain isn't what I worry about, Harvey."

He doesn't know what to say to that. He tries to hold her gaze and finds he can't. He blinks away, telling himself that uptick in his heart rate is just an aftershock from the panic attack.

"Did this start when I went to work for Louis?"

He looks back at her then, into those eyes that know him just so, and tries to find the words. He can't. But he knows she sees the answer in the way his eyes crease, the way he swallows instead of speaking.

"Do you want me to come back?" Her voice is low now, and there's something sitting underneath - that tension, the undercurrent that they both bury at work and flirt with at dinner, what they both go home to and think about when they drink, when they text, when they call.

She's so close. If he moved in, just a little…

It would be easy, he thinks. So easy. If he just leaned forward an inch, she might lean back, and if she did, he could nudge her lips with his nose, run his mouth over hers, push his hands into her hair. He couldn't be sure, but he's willing to bet she'd kiss him back, slide her tongue against his. She'd run her hands under his robe, dropping it to the floor, and he could lose himself in her.

He could pull her to him tonight, pull her back to his desk tomorrow, put everything back how it used to be. It wouldn't be right, wouldn't be fair, but then, she's never seen him like this, and he can see it's thrown her open, raw and protective. He feels her fingers curl against his chest a little, and he could do it, he could do it right now - slick his hands around her waist and pull her hips to his, duck his head into their height difference and kiss her like he's been waiting to for years. He could walk her backwards with his mouth on hers, sit her down on his bed, kneel between her legs, run his hands up her back until he finds the zipper on her dress. He'd drag the zipper down, pushing a hand beneath the material to smooth his palm along her back, and she would knit her fingers through his hair, pull his mouth more firmly against his. He'd nudge her dress back off her shoulders, duck his head into the crook of her neck and run his tongue along her skin. She'd squeeze her legs around his waist, pulling his hips against hers, and he'd push up, covering her body with his, hiking her dress up her legs to get his skin against hers. He'd lick up the side up her neck, breathe 'come back to me' in her ear, and she'd do it, he knows she would if he just -

"Harvey."

- he blinks, and he's back in the present, Donna looking at him, full of concern, of compassion, waiting for an answer.

Do you want me to come back?

"No," he says. Her hand is still resting on him. He takes a deep breath against her palm. "You made a choice for yourself, Donna. I need to figure out how to make that work for myself."

"Are you sure?"

He smiles but he thinks it probably looks like sadness. "No. I'm not. I'm scared out of my mind. I've got some shit I have to work through, and you protect me from all that, but I have to try because if I don't do it now I think it might kill me, Donna." He dares to place a hand over hers, squeezes. "I don't know what's going on or what I'm doing, but I have to try this. I have to see if I can get to where I need to be."

She smiles wistfully at him, cups his cheek, murmurs, "you're not as far away as you think, Harvey," and her voice doesn't waver but he thinks he can hear tears swimming behind it. There's a pause, a too long pause, and he can feel the desire to lean in returning, and she must too, because she drops her hand from his, says kindly that she needs to go, asks if he'll be okay, makes him promise to call if he needs anything, and says she'll let herself out.

He stands in his room long after he hears the door click shut behind her. He tries to feel proud of himself, but he mostly feels empty. He drops into bed eventually, and thinks about how exhausted he is as he lies in the dark, staring at the ceiling.

He wonders if, elsewhere, Donna does the same.

end

*Notes*

Thank you to the ever supportive Darvey community for encouraging such a creativity in the fanbase! As usual, I am very new to writing these characters - constructive fedback is always greatly recieved.