i'm drifting out over deep oceans (and the tide won't take me back in)

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Suits.

Note: I'll probably make vague references to my previous work, "the water was covered with blue leaves," but it's not quite a sequel?

Maybe?

It starts just a few days later.

This is me leaving messages, Donna. You're right, I owe you that at least. I could kill Louis, I really could—should have known this was the kid's idea, Donna please—

Beep - message deleted

I took you for granted, I know that now, I know it's not fair—

Beep - message deleted

I punched Tanner, did you know that? Just punched him right in the face—

Beep - message deleted

They just keep coming, flooding her inbox, sometimes at such sharp intervals at such strange times that Donna can't help but look at the clock and realize that Harvey is calling when he should really be sitting down with Louis over whatever joint case Jessica has them working on, like a stern mother trying to force cooperation between her unruly sons.

He's colour coding my messages, does he really think I give a—

Beep - message deleted

She can't stand to hear any of them in their entirety, especially not the ones about her (albeit ridiculous) replacement, though a vain part of her is smug in the knowledge that it is not another woman. It's getting late by the time the latest message comes through—she had that urge for ice cream so she's still hanging up her coat—it's not as though she can't answer, but well, she can't.

You were right; I should have fought harder for you. I know you're probably deleting all of these, but Mike, he just—

Her thumb pauses over the Delete button, hesitates for just a moment, because is that Harvey's voice on the other side of her door? Donna stops listening to her phone and approaches the entryway, adjusting the baseball bat that sits by the small end table in her hand.

She throws the door open before she can change her mind.

It's been a while since she's seen the great Harvey Specter look surprised.

—

"Donna—"

"Mike just what?"

He still looks startled; is it terrible that she relishes in it, just a little bit? Is it terrible that she's making him say it, out loud, all the things she already knows, that are probably too complex to put into words?

Okay, so maybe she's a little bitter, still.

Sue her.

Donna crosses her arms over her chest, trying to retain a little dignity in the face of Harvey in his ever present suit, against her university sweats and a t shirt that is ratty and worn, betraying a strip of skin between hem and waistband. She watches Harvey's jaw tighten, like he's gearing up for a fight, but at the last second it seems, he relaxes.

"Mike wouldn't be okay."

Objections rise up, so quickly she can't possible voice them all, but he raises one hand and she rails them back down.

"When that kid ran into our interview with that briefcase of pot, he was barely keeping his head above water."

She smiles inwardly at the memory, but picks up the serious turn in conversation. "You're scared if you let him go without you there he'll sink."

The look on Harvey's face says it all.

It's that face he makes when Mike leaves his office some mornings, when he doesn't notice her watching, the one he makes when he pushes the boy so hard Mike pushes back, the one he makes when Mike presents him with stacks of files that have traces of highlighter smudge from yet another all-nighter at the firm.

As though he's finally resigned himself to the brilliant mind of this sometimes naive, sometimes rash, sometimes too emotionally involved for his own good associate.

As though Harvey's not quite sure what his days would be like without someone to quote films with, or pass jabs at, or surreptitiously watch from the entrance to make sure he gets going on his bike okay at the end of every work day.

He made that face months ago, one time when Mike came in so ill that he passed out in the office and they'd had to take him home; he'd been so delirious with fever that she'd read him Curious George and tried not to cry when he called her Mom, with Harvey carding his fingers through Mike's hair all the while because it seemed to soothe him.

He made it the day Jessica found out, too.

It's the same face he makes when he talks about his brother, when he's feeling protective and proud and amused and sometimes a little disappointed, because he cares, and no matter how he or Mike might try and say otherwise, this is something Donna knows, sure as she knows their pre-trial ritual or how Harvey takes his coffee.

Usually, that face makes her heart warm.

Tonight though, it hurts instead.

"What about me?"

It's meant to be sharp and biting—because she's still mad, she can still be mad, because he's Harvey and she's Donna, and when he made Senior Partner it was Harvey who said, "we."

He said, "We."

It comes out so quietly she almost doesn't even hear herself.

—

Oh god don't start crying whatever you do.

The expression of loss on Harvey's face is almost too much to bear. It's hard to look at him, even as he says, "You are strong. You're beautiful and talented and clever, and if I wasn't getting you back I know you'd be fine, because you were kicking ass long before I ever found you."

Donna Jane Paulsen if you cry right now you are never eating ice cream again.

"Donna."

God damn it.

"Don't say it, Harvey."

It's not so much a warning as it is a plea; she's breaking, can't he see that? She's angry and tired and tired of being angry, but he's already moving, already invading her space, already trapping her against the closed door to her bedroom (when did she move? Was it a vain attempt to escape him?).

Donna's hand goes out in some desperate need for space but he just catches it in his own, holding on tight, and in that single great and terrible moment, she thinks he might kiss her.

Sometimes, she figures, she could be so in love with Harvey Specter that it hurts.

"Don't," she gets out, soft and broken like torn flower petals. "Please."

Shit.

Her vision is blurring.

He cups her cheek in his other hand (Donna is painfully aware of her pony tail, leaving the curve of her neck vulnerable to his calloused fingertips) and she hates herself a little for letting him. In this moment, in her bare feet, they are almost the same height, but she feels tiny.

"I'm sorry." Harvey's eyes are dark (have they always been so dark? Why is she even looking? What happened to her resolve?) and she's caught, frozen, like the last moment of stillness before the tide rolls in on the shore. But then the waves break and she is lost.

"I'm sorry," he says again, leaning in and (her heart, Harvey, geez) touching her forehead with his. His voice is low and gravelling and familiar, as though from a long forgotten dream and she's scared. "I never should have let you go."

And the worst part of this now, is that Donna isn't even sure what he's referring to. The job? Last week? Before?

She closes her eyes as if that will help her discover the answer.

"Harvey."

You should go. It's right there on the tip of her tongue. They're both sober this time, both level-headed, right? This won't end well and here is yet another thing they will never be able to take back. He exhales, his breath ghosting over her lips. Something tightens in her chest.

Harvey drops his head onto her shoulder and speaks into the dip of her collarbone. His hand leaves her face to flash sparks over the bare skin at her waist. She squeezes her eyes a little tighter shut before opening them and adjusting to the dim hallway light.

"I'm not going into work tomorrow."

Donna's free hand is reaching up to thread through the hair at the base of his neck; when did that happen?

"I know."

Harvey lifts his head to look at her, and her mind flashes unbidden to that awful day in his office so many years ago. That thing in her heart squeezes harder.

"I'm still mad at you," she tells him.

The corner of his mouth lifts, and Donna catches just a glimmer of the man who sits behind glass walls.

"I'd expect nothing less."

And then Harvey leans up, his lips brushing her traitorously sparking skin and his nose pressing into her hair.

"Remember the can opener, okay?"

He leaves without waiting for an answer; his warmth peels away from hers like it had last week in his room and Donna is struck with loneliness.

It's only when he's out the door that she can breathe again.

Author's Note: never let me do that again.

Ouch. It hurts.

Also, someone get on me to write that sick!Mike fic? Because the Curious George revelation just stabbed me right in the feels.

God I miss Jenny. Come back, please. (Although probably not cause you're on PLL now, aren't you?)

I'll stop now.

Annie