Written for Pegtastic ( jobiefreeman), who made some generous donations towards Australian bush fire relief. She wanted to see a fic with a big dose of angst and Harvey being unfaithful to Donna but with the proviso that they make it through as a couple.

Disclaimer: This was really interesting to write as most people would see this action as quite OOC for Harvey, including myself, and finding a way through this prompt in a way that felt genuine to the characters was a real challenge! In particular, I was focussed on making sure Donna was not a victim of these circumstances and responded in a way that felt genuine to her strength of character. This was a tough one, both to concept and write and to put the characters we love through, so thanks for coming on the journey, and as always feedback is gratefully recieved.

Break

It's Seattle that breaks them.

They both hate it. Donna hates the provincialism, the rain, the lack of theatre. Mike's firm already has a COO and she hates not going to work with Harvey and Mike and Rachel every day. Mike assures her they'll work something out, but Donna knows the shoes she's already filled and she can't step into smaller ones. She misses her family and her firm. She misses new restaurants and changing streets and cheap burger joints owned by the same family for 100 years.

Harvey hates how everybody wears jeans to work. He hates the small thinking and the isolation. He hates getting in a car and running out of city to drive through. He hates the tech developers with their bluetooth headsets and that there's no good jazz, he hates the shitty whisky and he especially hates the fucking hipsters. He likes seeing Mike every day and he's winning cases, but they're not challenging and there's no lawyers in Seattle who can go toe to toe with him so he's bored. He hates leaving his apartment every morning and having to say 'I'll see you tonight' to Donna.

Mostly, they hate that Seattle is a collection of buildings and people but it's not home, it's not a place with an identity and a soul and it can't compete with the living, breathing madness of New York. Because in Seattle, life is like this, but they both like this, and this is in New York.

They fight more. They scramble for something to hold on to together but they don't see each other enough and they're both trying to make it through the day and it's hard. They're restless, and bored, and dinners with Mike and Rachel don't help enough to stop the unfamiliar lines of Seattle changing them. It doesn't take either of them long to crack along their seams.

Slowly, Donna stops looking for new restaurants and stops going to the theatre when she can find it. Donna eventually stops looking for a job big enough for the shoes she's already been in. Donna disconnects.

Harvey kisses someone else.

The details don't matter - Harvey doesn't want to remember them anyway. He wants to forget the spat he'd had with Mike and how he'd stalked out of the office. He wants to forget calling Donna, and forget her not answering. They had a fight that morning anyway - another one, and he also wants to forget that. He wants to forget it all. Seattle has driven Harvey backwards. He's angry again, defensive, primed to be betrayed and to respond out of anger. He wears his paranoia like an old coat. He had asked if they were okay when he text her at lunch, and she had said they were but she hadn't finished the text with an 'x' like she normally would. And that non-x means much more than it would have six months ago when they were waking up together in Manhattan and smiling into each others eyes and hearts, when Harvey and Donna both felt light and excited and ready.

So he'd called, and she hadn't answered, and she pretty much always answered, and there was no 'x', so Harvey doesn't resist the paranoia washing over him and thinks Donna has already left him once and what if she does it again. Mike doesn't answer either, and he thinks that Mike has already left him once and what if Mike won't work with him any more. He can't even get a bagel without walking into a store anymore and he thinks what if he's stuck in a city he hates without his friend and without his soul mate.

Harvey's projection and fear settle on him like insurance, guarding against his vulnerability and his self reflection and against all the things that are good for him but that he's still terrified of if Donna isn't there to pull him through the other side.

By the time he's found a shitty bar to sit and drink bad whisky in (blended; they don't even have any single malts let alone Macallan), he finally gives in and lets the last six months push in on him. The weight of the decision to move, because he started it and seeded it, has been hovering over him and he's been fighting for it like it wasn't a mistake. But he thinks it is, and now he lets it land on his shoulders like it's been trying to since he landed in Seattle. He feels every bad decision, every argument with Donna, every flash of regret in her eyes that Harvey feels the responsibility for, and he doesn't think working for the good guys is worth seeing her look at him like that.

Regret is a comfortable drinking buddy, and Harvey is three hours and thirteen doubles deep before he knows it. His phone still hasn't buzzed, Donna hasn't called, and the bartender has asked him if he's okay four times. Harvey says he's fine even though he isn't but he gets away with it. He hasn't forgotten how to hold himself when he's emptied a bottle of whisky; he has the memory being drunk when he's also working late, of pulling the memory of some obscure law or precedent at a party or a casino when he's been too long at the tables. He has too many parties and too many poker games built into his DNA at this point. He's in no danger of being cut off, but he should be, he should have been folded into a cab an hour ago, the bar stool isn't steady under him and he wishes he was in the Lower East Side instead of this goddamn city.

He keeps drinking and he's mostly alcohol by the time a pretty blonde slides into the bar next to him to ask him his name and if he comes here often. Harvey tells her his name, says he doesn't drink here often and that he's from New York. They chat, about nothing, about what New York is like at this time of year and how she hates her job, faces close together to hear over the chatter and music and glasses crackling together, and she says something clever so he laughs, he laughs quickly and easily when he's drunk -

Donna loves that about him, she loves to distract him with idle chatter about their days over drinks, loves to slip him one too many, take him to bed so she can feel him giggle against her lips as he wraps his arms around her back and touches his bare skin to hers and he laughs and he makes love to her

- and she thinks he's flirting so she ducks her mouth towards him, eyes on his, and he's drunk so he doesn't stop her, and he lets her press her lips against his. He doesn't lean in, but he doesn't pull away, and he lets himself enjoy it, enjoys kissing her back, enjoys the thrill of new taste, new touch, waits until she pulls back to say 'I'm married'. She says who cares, that she is too.

And then she's in his lap, and he's not sure if that was him or if it was her, and his hands are up her back and his tongue is in her mouth. She feels different and it's odd, he's not used to a parade of different bodies anymore, hasn't been for a long time, and her frame feels off under his hands, but she's warm and he's drunk and goddamn does she know how to kiss.

She nibbles on his earlobe, murmurs 'let's get out of here' into his ear, and he nearly does it, he nearly leans in again, nearly leans into ruin, he wants to, but then there's a flash of memory -

Donna, listening in to his phone from her desk and raising an eyebrow at him when he pretends to be offended.

Donna, teasing him about a new suit and asking if he was auditioning for a role in a Scorsese film.

Donna, not long after following him from the DA's office, touching the back of his hand like they shared a secret nobody else knew.

Donna, kissing him like there was nobody else in the world.

Donna kissing him like there were billions of other people in the world but the only one she wants is him.

- and he shakes his head, says he has to go. He slides her off his lap, pushes back from the bar to leave. She takes the hint and looks at him like she knows the look in his eyes. He isn't the first person she's sought out who also has a ring so she can guarantee an evening of drunken fucking with no strings attached, he guesses. She shrugs, smiles, and moves on from him before he has to try and get his legs under him, he turns his head instead to watch her go, lets his eyes fall over her form. He appreciates it more than he thinks he should.

Shit…. shit.

Hand shaking, he orders another drink.

By the time he leaves the bar, he's still drunk but he's sobered up enough for the reality of what he's done to have formed a godawful knot in his chest, and his heart is dropping into his stomach, and if he wasn't years past it he would have sworn he was about to have a panic attack. Under the tightness, under the dread, he feels the hollow ache of defeat. All that running, all that denial, and then all that work and honesty and effort, and yet, six months after he thought he'd fixed everything, he had become exactly who he'd never wanted to be.

—

Donna can't decide if she should keep waiting or just go out to get something to eat and get some air.

Mike called earlier; he and Harvey had gotten into one of their knock-down, drag-out fights. Harvey wasn't dealing well having Mike as a quasi-boss; he'd never dealt well with authority anyway, and having someone he constantly forgot wasn't his associate telling him what to do was a shift he couldn't seem to get comfortable with. When Harvey and Donna had decided to move, they hadn't realised everything would move - not just their bodies and their furniture, but their relationships and work and the way people saw them. In Seattle, Harvey wasn't the best closer the city had ever seen. He was just another lawyer most of the city hadn't heard of. In Seattle, Donna wasn't the COO that could work magic, and she wasn't the right hand woman to the lawyer that could bring entire companies to their knees. She was just Donna. And being just Donna should be enough, she thinks. But it isn't. She's not coping, and neither is Harvey.

So Harvey and Mike fought, and Mike called to let her know, and that was hours ago and he wasn't home yet. She hadn't called. She should have, but Harvey needed time to stew, to fume, to go boxing and punch his frustrations into a heavy bag and maybe a trainer's face. And then even the length of time it should have taken to do that came and went, and Donna hates being someone who sits at home waiting for her husband, because she isn't that person, and he should know better than that. Harvey isn't someone who leaves Donna hanging and waiting for him either.

Christ. What the hell is happening to us.

She is just about to pick up the phone and call, finally, tell him to come home and have it out with him - this has to stop, they have to stop tearing each other apart, have to stop avoiding each other - when there is a knock at the door, which strikes her as odd because she knows Rachel is busy tonight and they don't know anybody else well enough to have people drop around unannounced. Seattle is isolated and isolating, so it's probably hawkers or Jehovah's Witnesses, so she readies herself with a polite 'no thank you' and opens the door -

- and it's Harvey. He's without his jacket, his shirt sleeves rolled up and tie loosened off. He's leaning his forearm against the door frame, and he's looking at her almost just the same as he did once, when Robert had fallen on his sword for him and he'd had the epiphany that has led them to this moment. It's almost the same - everything in him laid bare and open and vulnerable - but there's also something fundamentally different. She sees the different in him like she sees everything else in him, and it's connected to the way she's watched him retreat over the last six months, she's also done that but not really, because where she's spent six months retreating from the world, he's spent six months retreating from her.

Donna starts to say 'Harvey' and to ask him what's wrong and why won't he come into his own house but then she sees the look in his eyes punch through her questions and she knows and all the air goes out of the world.

She retreats, and it's minute, the smallest physical withdrawal from him, but he sees it even through the edgy hazes of his evening and it screams into the void between them.

She asks.

"Did you fuck her?"

"No."

"Did you kiss her?"

"She kissed me."

"Did you kiss her back?"

"Yes."

She feels her hand go to her mouth and she steps back from the door, it's automatic, her body shying away.

Harvey starts takes a step over the threshold. "Donna…"

"What happened." It's not a question as much as it is a demand.

He swallows, hesitates, but it's only a second before the whole goddamn day spills out of him. He's talking at pace, and he's admitting everything, admitting fighting with Mike, admitting getting drunk in some shitty bar, admitting meeting some woman who came up to him and kissed him and he kissed her back and Jesus Donna what the fuck did I do, and his story collapses into a broken and circular apology that rounds back upon itself until he's virtually incoherent.

And then finally, she interrupts. "Stop."

He starts to move towards her. "Donna."

"Don't."

He stops, and her heart hammers into her hollow chest.

"Don't."

She closes the door.

They stand on opposite sides of the door to their apartment, both of them with their hands up against the door frame, and it feels more like they're standing on opposite sides of the world.

—

It's a day later when he knocks quietly because he'd text her earlier asking to come over, and she lets him in, because she text him back, and because she needs to know that she still knows him. She's spent years looking after him, looking out for him, looking into him, watching him struggle through hurt after hurt. She'd watched him ignore his flaws, deny them, blame everyone else for them, and finally, finally start to face them.

She watched him get hit with the revelation that she wasn't just a friend that he trusted and sometimes flirted with, watched him realise she was someone he couldn't cut out of him, that he was someone she couldn't cut out of her, that he loved her and she knew it. She watched him realise it, then say it, and then cycle back out of it, run from it, and she knew it was because deep down, he was terrified he would ruin her.

She can't look at him now, at Harvey, who denied his own heart for years in a desperate attempt to love her properly, and believe that she could have watched him all that time and not really seen him.

She knows him. She is heartbroken, livid, nursing a deep anger sat in her belly - but she knows him. She thinks, surely she knows him.

So she lets him in, and he sits on the sofa opposite her, and Donna looks at him evenly. She's furious, but she's waiting.

"I quit."

"What?"

"I quit. I told Mike I'm out. It's this fucking city, Donna. I can't do it. Let's go home. Let's go back to New York."

"That's not going to solve this, Harvey."

He knows, deep down, that she's right. He's doing what he always does, trying to find a grand gesture, trying to make everything better in one sweeping action, trying do anything but talk about what he was struggling through. But it's all he trusts in this moment, when he's pulled back inside of himself and hiding from everything he's tried to change about himself.

He runs his hand through his hair. "Donna… Jesus Donna I'm so sorry. I fucked up. Nothing makes any sense here. But if we go, we just have to get out of here -"

"That's enough."

"Donna- "

"Shut the hell up, Harvey." She is full of clear, righteous anger. She reaches right through him, through any excuse he might attempt to make, through any justification, any excuse, and she grabs his soul hostage. "I know this is hard. I know you're struggling. I know this is difficult and we made a mistake coming here. I know this place is killing you. And you want to make some huge decision that you think will sweep everything away and change what's going on inside you. But you can't, Harvey. You have to deal with this." She reaches over to him, reaches over the chasm between them, touches a finger to his chest. "In here. This will kill you if you don't deal with it. And it's your decision. You can run from city to city if you want. I can't force you to deal with this. But I will not go down with you, do you hear me? I won't. If it comes down to choosing between you and me, I will walk, Harvey."

She shakes her head, draws in a breath. "If it was anyone else, anyone else, this wouldn't even be happening, because you would have never seen me again. Ever." It's not a threat, and it's not her trying to make him feel anything or to manipulate him - it's just the truth, because Donna is better than him and better than this and better than what he's done to her. "I'm so angry. I'm so hurt. What you've done is…" She can't quite find the words. She grabs his hand instead. "But Harvey, I've seen you fight for us before. I need you to fight now."

She is hanging on to him by a thread he doesn't deserve to be tethered to, and he can feel the weight of what she's doing, feel the selflessness of her being there, bearing down on him, feels the generosity of her rage and honesty in his bones. She's giving him a gift, an entirely undeserved one - because where he's pulled away from her over these dragged out, tired months, she is doing the opposite. He wants to run; instead she's laying her hurt and pain out to him and asking him to find a way back.

She's still fighting for them. Still fighting for him, after all these years. She's fighting for his heart, for his soul for the goodness she saw in him that nobody else did. She still sees him under all the hurt he's piled on her since they moved here. Yet again, as he's done since the day they met, he's proven himself wanting and unworthy, and she has reached into him to show him who he could be. It's so beyond what he deserves that he can't really even grasp it.

Forgiveness. Grace.

Jesus, he thinks.

He starts, 'Donna…' but then he can't say anything. There's nothing to say. He swallows, and ducks his head. He knows what shame feels like - it's chased him for most of his life. But this is something else entirely. "I can't…" Fuck, what a coward. He feels tears stinging, and he tries to blink them back, because it's his fault, he's done this, not her, he's gone and fucked everything, but grace is still so foreign to him that he never knows what to do with it.

He still doesn't know what to do with second chances and he can't breathe.

So he just nods, says that if she lets him, he'll do everything he can to be worthy of her again. And then she is kneeling in front of him, wrapping her arms around him, and it's entirely unwarranted and undeserved, entirely due to her goodness chasing him down, her hand through his hair, murmuring, "I forgive you, Harvey." And it's not because he's crying, and it's not because of the shame chasing his soul down his throat. It has nothing to do with him. She forgives him because she is better than him - always has been - and she is, again, infinitely, as she always is, reaching out to pull him alongside her.

He feels gravity lift off him.

She lets him drop a hand against her waist, lean his head into her collar bone, and she slides her arms around him and she's crying too and Harvey feels like shit for it but it's also her starting to move past what he's done and choosing the good in him and it sounds like healing.

It's the most powerful he's ever known her to be.

There will be work to do, he knows. There will be hard conversations, and arguments, and Harvey will have to bear the uncomfortable weight of honesty, and work through the revelation that he has not journeyed as far as he thought he had, that Donna has still been making up the gap between who he is and who he wants to be. It will be time, he knows. Time before they can talk easily, without something brittle sitting under the surface. It will be time before he can joke easily with her again. Time before she will touch him lightly and easily while making coffee in the morning, before she takes his chin in his hands and draws him to her, before she kisses him and leads him into their bedroom, before they find their ease and intimacy and before she slips him one too many drinks again and guides him to bed to laugh and make love.

But it will come. She is there to fight. So is he.

It will come.

—

And it does.

end.