Updated A/N: This story starts off rated T, but will progress to M as the story unfolds. Edited 10-2-2017 to switch tenses and fix a couple mistakes. Set after Jessica leaves and the hand holding. In this, Mike has taken the job as consultant.

Harvey's pinky finger rests on the conference-room table, just an inch from hers. If one of them shifts in the slightest- turning to talk with Louis, Mike, Rachel, or Gretchen seated around them, they'll brush digits. Could pinky-promise with the smallest of movements.

Does Rachel notice how unusually close Harvey is sitting to her? It's weird, right? Even his knee is precariously close to hers under the glass table.

This meeting should've been occupying her brain with much more serious matters. The state of the firm, and their futures are at stake. But Donna is often distracted by details of those around her. They make up a piece of a bigger picture. And if she has the details arranged just right, she usually comes to a conclusion no one else considers.

Her ability to only focus on Harvey today is disconcerting. This financial overseer Jessica hired as her parting requirement has all of them on edge, and there are plenty of issues besides Harvey that need her special kind of focus.

She sucks in a breath and forces her attention elsewhere. Rachel's ankle keeps shifting nervously to the side. She does that when she's feeling insecure about her abilities. Mike steadies her ankle under the table with his foot. He's trying to reassure her but it doesn't work since Rachel moves to smoothing out her hair. Louis pulls on the lapel his suit jacket, just about the area he keeps his Dictaphone. He's on the ready to record this meeting. And Gretchen…

Harvey's foot bumps into hers. She glances over to him, and she thinks she sees his lip turn up the tiniest bit. Was that on purpose? Harvey isn't taking this seriously. He must not give a shit about what this overseer is about to say. But more than that, he's intentionally touching her. Approaching their invisible line.

Donna used to go out for drinks with this guy named Lamar many years before. He was a well-known dog trainer whose entire wardrobe consisted of gym wear. The man could talk to a prissy little dog with the highest pitch voice and get those bitches to roll over on their backs. His words, not hers.

He had this word he used that always stuck with her. Intersextion.

No, he didn't mispronounce intersection. He really called it intersextion.

He used it to describe when two people had parallel lives, avoiding the thought of doing it, until they couldn't avoid it anymore and they fucked. Lamar probably brought it up so much in hopes that they would intersext, but she never went down that path. Too many pups in the man's bed, literally and figuratively.

Why she still thinks about it to this day was obvious. Because that intersextion he'd been talking about fits her and Harvey that night he'd come to her apartment years before. And they've been avoiding meeting at that point that crossed the line ever since.

Every now and again they approach the connection point again, and one of them quickly shifts and goes back, taking a turn down an opposite road, or distracting each other until one or the other pass. Silly metaphor, right? Except for its accuracy.

Like the hand holding the other night. Where he actually didn't turn back, but he didn't move anywhere either. She's stuck, waiting for who will play chicken and pull away first. This time she was the one, using pouring them more scotch as an excuse, when in reality, her stomach was in such knots she only nursed the drink before contemplating finding a plant to dump it in.

Harvey's reaction was as usual, non-reactive. He hadn't brought it up, and they'd gone back to no touching. His hand suddenly shifts, the inch erased, and she catches his side glance before the charge makes her pull her hand away.

Shadows flicker in the low light as Harvey slams a file on his desk. "Godammit."

"What is it, Harvey?" Donna asks.

"This client list is bullshit. I'm happy Jessica decided to find herself, but in the meantime, she left us with a sinking ship."

"That wasn't what she was trying to do-"

Harvey cuts her off with a wave of his hand. "I know. But that doesn't change the fact that if I don't find a way to get more money coming in, she won't be the only one leaving here searching for a new future."

Her boss, who also happens to be her pet project for the last thirteen years, sits at his desk, stiff and still. Tight shoulders held together by a ten-thousand dollar suit. He isn't much different of a picture than he ever is, but she can see the extra wrinkle in his forehead, the little bit of extra pink under his skin from the heat radiating from the inside. The way his straight posture looks slightly more of an effort, as if he's holding the company on his shoulders himself, as he basically is.

She takes a seat in front of his desk. "We'll just stay here tonight until we've gone through every new client possibility."

His gaze raises from his desk, falling on her. "You don't have to do that. You should go home, call Maxwell, and I'll figure it out."

She forgives his annoying intentional flub because of a twinge of guilt. "It's Mitchell, but you knew that Harvey."

A hint of a smirk tells her she's right.

She bites her lip, hesitating before adding, "And besides, we broke up. I'm free as long as you need me tonight."

His attention darts back to her from the computer. "When did this happen?"

"A few weeks ago."

His mouth sets in a thin line. "Why didn't you tell me?"

She shrugs. "You were busy with Mike, and…" The rest of the words hang between them, approaching the dangerous corner she'd avoided turning on for more than a decade.

"You were seeing each other a long time."

"We were." She doesn't offer more, because they don't talk about her love-life in more than brief recaps.

He's still staring. Probably considering a way to shift from the intimate. "Did he hurt you?"

Still moving forward. She waves her hand. "No. Walking away hurts. But I'm fine."

He tilts his head. "You should've told me. You don't have to go through a break-up alone."

Hadn't they always done that before? Well, she did. And he just thought he did, with her adjusting strings behind the curtain as needed. "Well... I didn't."

"Oh." He nods. "Rachel."

A trickle of guilt burns somewhere in her gut. "Well, I told her, yes." She looks away. "And I talked to Louis." Told Louis. She should've said told. It sounds less committed.

His jaw ticks in the slightest of ways, then he nods.

He's hurt. Or jealous?

There's that corner they avoid approaching again, and this time they've come closer to it than usual. She needs to turn back again. Or at least down a different one.

"You know, you don't divulge details about your sex life."

"I don't need to. You already know before I tell you. You're Donna, remember?"

"Yeah, well lately you've become sneakier or something, because I've barely come up with any of your latest action."

A smirk and a quick nod says he's amused at her admission. "Maybe you're losing your touch."

She looks him dead in the eyes. "I never lose my touch."

"Well in this case you did. Because if you'd been on your game, you'd have known I've been cutting back." He leans back into his chair.

"Harvey Specter cutting back. Maybe you're off your game."

He squints his eyes, lips pursed as he shakes his head. "I'm never off my game."

"Maybe you're finally growing up."

"Is not banging hot women what other people call grown up? I call it focusing on getting Mike out of prison."

"Maybe you've been having a hard time finding people that want you." She falls back, unsuccessfully fighting back a grin so big it made her face hurt.

He leans towards her with a look of arrogance that for some ridiculous reason, makes it hard to imagine how she could ever leave his desk again.

"Someone wanting me isn't the problem."

Dammit Donna. Don't look at his lips. Don't do it. Her eyelids flicker, but she manages to remain composed, minus the race her heart is running as he looks at her with mischief.

The corner. She hadn't even started moving toward it, had she? Dammit. No matter how hard she tries to stay away from the corner of Specter/Paulsen, no wait -if they're going there- Paulsen/Specter, she keeps finding herself dumped right back at their intersection.

As usual, one of them turns back before it gets too deep. He clears his throat and goes back into high profile clients, rich clients, and desperate for representation clients, and she flashes the list she tucked into her bag earlier at the ready to surprise him with. Then she reveals the gossip she's researched from some of their secretaries. A woman always comes prepared.

He pours them another drink after they solidify their updated client list they'll begin courting first thing in the morning.

He passes her the glass, and she eyes the liquid knowing her number for the night is approaching dangerous territory. "You don't think we're passing the point of regret?"

He grins. "What? Where we start dancing in the halls, pissing in Louis's office, and confessing to each other how horny we are from being alone?"

She chokes on the liquid, making it burn twice as much as she swallows it down. "I'm fast approaching forty, Harvey. I don't need to be alone to feel..." Her hand flies to cover her lips.

His fall open as he eyes her curiously. He looks away, appearing to decide better of it. "You need to find someone to help with that."

She laughs. "Yeah, how am I supposed to do that when I'm stuck here with you until ungodly hours of the night."

He empties his glass, silence enveloping even the darkest corners for how long it stretches. "I sometimes think about it. But your rule-"

Abort. "Don't."

"We're both adults Donna; we both work a lot-"

Crash and burn. Into each other. "Definitely don't." She stands, taking steps to put space between them.

"You never think about it?"

"You're drunk."

"Yes, but I've been thinking about it sober too." He stands. "I can't stop thinking about it."

"What are you, proposing I give you more benefits than I already do?"

"Did you forget how beneficial I can be?" His brow jumps, the corners of his mouth stretching.

His audacity has her shaking her head, but at the same time the words to dismantle his claim can't form on her lips. He'd been helpful in ways she hadn't fallen upon in the same way since. Bastard.

Harvey looks down, a slight pout on his lips. "So that's a no."

She shakes her head for actually feeling a tinge of guilt, but also for the deepest part of her trickling into a flourishing interest. "That's a- this is a horrible idea."

"Forever?" He asks candidly.

Her fists ball at her sides. Forever is too permanent to promise. The foolish side of her, the side that seems determined to force her into a continuing cycle of feelings that shift to regret, want her to jump. Him. "I can't say that."

"Then the answer can wait until tomorrow. And if you want to drop it then don't say anything more. If you don't, I think we should talk about what that means."

The fact that he doesn't look away unnerves her further. This isn't something he came up with drunk. Like the first time, crossing too far into boundaries with your boss is a horrible plan. Crossing boundaries with who they'd become could damage them beyond recovery.

This may push Harvey a bit OOC. I will try a scene to explain this continues. This may go to an M at some point, but I'll give fair warning. Anyway, let me know what you think, good or bad. Thanks for reading! I own nothing.