Hey all! I'm sorry it's been so long since the last chapter and sorry this one isn't longer! But I figured something shorter was better than nothing. I hope you like it and hopefully the next chapter won't be too far away!

When Donna woke up the next morning, she found the space beside her empty. She stretched with a groan before shutting her eyes again and planting her hand upon her forehead. It was a relief knowing she wasn't keeping a secret from her mother anymore but she didn't want to face her for the first time.

"Good morning," Harvey said from the doorway, smiling at her dressed only in a towel after his shower.

"Morning," she smiled, sitting up.

"What's wrong?" He asked, walking over and sitting on the side of the bed.

"Nothing," she said, trying to assure him but failing.

"Is this about your mom?" He asked and watched as Donna sighed, flicking her eyes away briefly. "Do you regret telling her?"

"No," Donna replied instantly, "no, of course not. It's just," she began before she took a moment's pause. "It's just different now, you know? Not good, not bad, but different."

Harvey nodded. He understood, kind of. He knew he'd never really understand but he could grasp parts of it here and there and he knew the feeling of difference. That irreversible change that you know is for the best but causes uneasiness to swirl inside because things will never be the same again.

"I'm gonna go shower," Donna said and she placed a kiss against his lips.

X

When Donna headed down the stairs, she could smell coffee and pancakes spreading out from the kitchen and could hear her daughter giggling at something.

"Hey," she said when she entered the kitchen. "How's dad doing?"

"I don't think he'll be coming out today," she revealed and Donna breathed a heavy sigh. "And to answer your other question, no, he doesn't," Deborah said and her daughter responded with a grateful nod.

"Look mommy, it's you!" Ella grins, holding up a photo of a young Donna, around Ella's age and bearing a striking resemblance.

"Wow," she chuckled, leaning closer and looking at her younger self dressed as an angel in a nativity.

"Show Harvey!" Ella instructed. Donna smiled and took the photo, walking over to Harvey who was pouring pancake batter into a hot pan.

"Oh my god," he said. "She really is your mini me. Is this for your family tree, Ella?" He asked, the child having been sent home with the project to complete over the weekend.

"Uh-huh," she nodded, taking a sip of her juice.

"We were looking for photos of Jim and I, and photos of our families," Deborah told them, pointing to a pile of photos she'd gathered to use.

"Grandma got this pink paper," Ella said excitedly, placing her hands on it. Deborah had a stash of paper she used for craft projects.

"It'll look good," Donna said, pouring herself a coffee as Harvey emptied a punnet of strawberries into a bowl.

"Oh, looks like breakfast might be ready, Ella! Let's put this away until after," Deborah said, beginning to scoop up the photos in front of them.

"Can we get pictures of my dad after?" Ella asked, helping to pick up some of the photos and totally oblivious to the reactions of the adults around her. Harvey nearly dropped the plate of pancakes he was holding, Donna nearly choked on her coffee and Deborah had to suppress a gasp.

They probably shouldn't have been so shocked, she was bound to ask at some point, but no one was really expecting it.

"You don't need any," her grandmother told her, placing the pictures back in their box.

"Yeah I do," Ella said. "My teacher said so."

"All families are different, ours is too," Donna said as she grabbed some plates from a cupboard. "Sophie won't put a dad on hers, she'll put two mums," she explained. "You're putting one mum and that's okay."

X

They had a good day visiting the science center. Jim didn't feel well enough to go so it was just the four of them and Ella was especially excited about a dinosaur exhibit that was on. They bought her a cuddly velociraptor—or a flossy raptor, as Ella would say—from the gift shop at the end.

After, they ended up at a park with a playground. It was nearby the center and surprisingly pretty empty for a weekend and Ella begged with puppy dog eyes to climb over the climbing frame. She ran towards it after being given permission and her mother followed with a grin, elated she was making up for moments she'd lost because of him.

"Here," Harvey said, passing Deborah a steaming coffee he'd bought from the coffee hut and sitting next to her on the bench.

They watched as Ella ran across the roped pathway on the wooden climbing frame, meeting Donna at the other end of it before propelling herself down the slide with a beaming grin.

"She told me," Deborah said, breaking the silence while keeping her eyes fixed on her family ahead of her.

"I know," Harvey smiled.

"I know she told you recently, too," she continued, sipping on her drink. "To think she was going through all that pain and didn't tell a soul…"

"Sometimes I wonder if I should've realised," Harvey confessed, tapping the side of the cardboard cup. "We spent so much time together yet I didn't have a clue," he said solemnly and Deborah looked to him with pained eyes.

"You couldn't have known," she assured him. "Not if Donna didn't want you to. When those walls go up, there's no breaking them down."

"Sometimes, I look at her and I see so much sadness in her eyes. She smiles but she's so sad," Harvey said sadly. He turned his cup between his fingers, thinking about the times he didn't see it at all.

"She needs help, more than anything we can do," Deborah sighed before she took a sip of her drink.

"I don't know if she'd agree," Harvey scoffed. He watched Donna laugh after Ella said something before the child flew down the plastic slide off of the climbing frame.

"She's always been headstrong," her mother said. "Sometimes, too much for her own good."

"She'd rather fix everybody else's problems and help them understand their emotions than help herself," he smiled and turned to Deborah. "But she'll be okay, she's Donna."

X

They headed back to New York not long after returning from the park, Harvey driving them home. Ella fell asleep in the car, clinging onto her new cuddly toy, head tipped back in her seat with her curls splayed over her shoulders.

"Before I say this, I want you to know I'm only saying it because I care about you," Harvey said, interrupting the quiet jazz that was playing. Donna looked to him immediately, worried about what was going to come out of his mouth.

"Have you thought about talking to someone?" He suggested and Donna took a deep breath.

"What? Like a therapist?" She asked.

"Well, yeah," Harvey replied and heard her sigh. "And before you say anything, you'd be the first to recommend it to anyone else. It helps to talk about things, I promise," he said, glancing over at her briefly.

"Can I promise to think about it?"

He nodded. It was more than he expected from her and he was hopeful she would.

"For now, I just want to try to get back to normal. That man has nothing to do with us now," she said with a weak smile.

Harvey wasn't going to press.