231. {c} [suits] (harvey/donna) the collaboration of two solo artists
the collaboration of two solo artists ; pg-13 ; 4,077 words ;
1, bang bang
author's note: speculation based off of a view spoilers for the end of season 3
It ends with a bang.
”You’re with her all the time!”
“She’s my assistant.”
“You’re taking her to dinner, Harvey!”
“She’s my friend.”
“You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”
“Well, it can all be explained.”
“You’re so exhausting, you know that?”
“Listen, I’m not trying to be difficult here, Scottie. She’s my assistant. She’s my friend. She’s going through things.”
“What things?”
“I can’t tell you that, Scottie. I can’t betray her like that.”
“Your loyalty to her is astounding. You’d really risk it all for her.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No, it’s a promise. I can’t do this with you anymore. You’ll choose her every single time. Whatever is happening here isn’t as innocent as you seem to think it is. It isn’t just dinner into the wee hours of the morning or how you two work in such close proximity. I think you love her and you’re just too afraid to admit it. I made a huge mistake asking Donna if she loved you. I asked the wrong person. I should have been asking you all along.”
“It’s not like that.”
“It’s not like that. It’s never been like that. Except it’s always been like that. You’ve never questioned your feelings for her and you never will. How you feel about her is so obvious. I’m such an idiot for thinking it was all in my head.”
“Scottie.”
“No, Harvey, don’t try to pretend like I’m just being a ridiculous girl who is overreacting, this is a thing that’s been happening for a very long time and you’re just too scared to admit it to yourself.”
“Is this about Donna, or…?”
“Actually, it’s not. It’s hardly about Donna. It’s about the way you feel about Donna, about another woman. I’m not doing this anymore, Harvey. I’m not competing with another woman for your attention. It’s already taken everything out of me.”
“Scottie, I advise you not to walk out that door.”
“He’s all yours,” Scottie tells Donna as she passes her.
Scottie is stomping towards the elevator, heels digging into the carpet like she’s trying to leave her mark in the floor. Donna absently wonders if Scottie is imagining Harvey’s face beneath her feet. She doesn’t understand what happened that prompted Scottie to say that, but she is certain that she had nothing to do with it. Contrary to popular belief, Harvey doesn’t tell her everything.
Donna is absolutely confused by Scottie’s words, and they cause her to clutch her purse tight enough that her knuckles turn white. Donna couldn’t possibly have been so obvious in how she was feeling about her boss’ new relationship, she couldn’t possibly have been. She’s never that obvious. She couldn’t imagine being that obvious now.
Her eyes follow Scottie to the elevators and the two women lock eyes. Scottie smiles at her sadly, almost apologetically, as she tries to keep the tears at bay. There’s no way that this is the end. Scottie is still a lawyer at this firm. They’ll have to work it out. There is no way that she’s out like a lion.
Scottie steps onto the elevator and pushes the button for the bottom floor. From a distance, it looks like Scottie is punched in the gut as she finally loses her composure. She collapses against the wall of the elevator and disappears from Donna’s view as the doors slide closed accordingly. Donna considers what it’s like - everything working mechanically and the world continuing to move even when Scottie is collapsing. She feels bad for the woman.
Before she can even make it any further onto the 50th floor, she is accosted in the entryway by Mike and Rachel.
“What just happened?” Donna combats before either of them can say anything. Rachel’s hands clasp Donna’s forearms like she’s trying to keep her there.
“Okay,” Mike begins, expelling a breath, “I might have accidentally told Scottie that Harvey is probably in love with you.”
“Excuse me?!” Donna nearly screams. “There isn’t a chance that he’s in love with me. Why would you tell her that?”
“Donna,” Rachel adds evenly, a sly grin gracing her features, “you can’t be serious.”
“Rachel,” Donna replies sternly; her gaze narrows hard on the pair in front of her, “weren’t you the one who encouraged me to go out and get a life outside of this office?”
“You did what?” Mike asks, lips pursing accusingly.
Rachel’s cheeks redden, “I may have said - You know what? It doesn’t matter. What is important here is that Harvey and Scottie just broke up.”
“Yeah, okay,” Donna says with a breath. She balances on her heels like she’s trying to compose herself. “But it isn’t for good, right? It isn’t because of me.”
“Your name did come up,” Mike admits.
“Shit.”
“It’s okay, Honey,” Rachel attempts to console her, “I don’t think-“
“No,” Donna interjects, “why is this even being brought up? I don’t understand why anyone is telling Scottie anything and why it’s suddenly a thing now. It doesn’t make sense.”
“She was mad about him spending extracurricular time with you,” Mike answers with a shrug. Donna doesn’t like the way that he’s acting like it’s no big deal. This does not get the Donna seal of approval. She narrows her eyes hard at Mike’s phrasing and he swallows equally as hard. “He said that you’re going through some stuff and he wouldn’t tell her anything else so she got mad about his loyalty to you.”
For a moment she grins like she won and doesn’t even realize she’s done it until Rachel quirks an eyebrow and tilts her head knowingly. Donna pushes a hand against her hip and looks at them both pointedly. Mike squirms a little, uncertain how she can seem to be staring them both down at the same time. No wonder Donna always wins.
“Look, our friendship is not anything beyond that. He doesn’t have feelings for me and I don’t have feelings for him,” Donna reasons.
“You were-“
“You were just smiling like you won an award,” Rachel interrupts before Mike can get it all of the way out. Somehow, he thinks that it will be a lot safer coming out of Rachel’s mouth and he’s really glad that they are on the same page about this. “Harvey didn’t deny anything that Scottie was saying.”
“Everybody but you two can see that there’s something between you,” Mike points out. He shrinks immediately under Donna’s glare. For someone so smart, he can be real fucking stupid sometimes. “Look, all I’m saying is that maybe there’s something between you two. You are the only one he really cares about.”
“That’s just not true,” Donna denies. “He cares about you. And Jessica. And Scottie.”
“Do you remember that fake trial we had? He followed you out of the room, Donna,” Rachel argues back, “you’re the only person he will show the whole world that he has a weakness for. He wanted to be sure that you were okay. He’s willing to risk his relationship with Scottie now because he thinks that something is wrong with you, and I’m willing to bet that the thing wrong with you is that he’s with Scottie.”
Donna squints angrily, jaw tensed like she’s about to go toe to toe with her friend. “That’s just not true.”
“You sound like a broken record,” Mike retorts with a snort.
Rachel catches Donna’s arm before she can make a move towards Mike. Rachel has half a mind to believe that her friend is moments away from ripping her boyfriend’s face off. She would support it if the issue were anything other than this one. She’s seen the dynamics of Harvey and Donna shift so much over the last few months, and she’s noticed that on a more personal level, despite him being a newly committed man, they’ve still managed to get closer.
Lucky for Mike, Donna’s phone rings in her purse. She tosses the associate a glare as she digs through it but Mike only seems to stand taller. Rachel looks over and thinks that he is only moments away from pissing in his pants and she’s stifling a laugh in the confinements of her throat.
Her eyes dart to Donna as her demeanor saddens and she says: “I’ll be right there.”
The phone is barely away from her ear before she adds, “I have to go. My father had a heart attack and he’s in the hospital.”
Donna feels an ache in her chest. Forty years of living and she’s never felt an ache quite like this, and she’s scared. No, not scared. She’s terrified. She’s terrified that her father isn’t going to make it through yet another thing, let alone her mother.
She’s been spending a lot of time with Harvey outside of work, yes that’s true, but what no one outside of him knows is that it’s because her mother has cancer. And now, of all the things, her father’s had a heart attack. She might as well order the hospital to bunk them up together. At the rate they’re going, she might as well get a pen ready to sign whatever papers she’s going to have to sign.
For a moment, she wonders why this is her burden - why she’s the one who is supposed to take care of her parents when she has 5 siblings who are completely capable of pitching in. She’s spent half of her life being chastised for not doing everything that her parents wanted and now she’s the one who has to make sure they take their medication like they’re supposed to, that her father doesn’t skip a meal when her mother is in the hospital, and now that they’re in a room together so they can both be looked after.
Her phone rings just as she walks into the hospital. She doesn’t need to look at the name on the caller id to know who it is. She doesn’t need to look at it to know that Harvey is calling her to find out where she is, if she’s okay. He’s been doing that lately, calling just to check on her and make sure that she’s okay like she needs someone to take care of her.
She wonders if maybe there’s some truth to what everyone believes. She wonders if he could love her, if he loves her, if he would ever do anything about it - surely not - not when Scottie will be back to stake her claim over and over again. She’s almost certain that they will fix everything by Monday morning.
Harvey isn’t capable of hiding his feelings from her. He wouldn’t be able to have feelings for her without there being a tell. Momentarily, she thinks that maybe she’s just been refusing to see it while masking her true feelings about him and Scottie. She wonders if she was fooling everyone or just herself.
There’s truth to what Mike and Rachel had said. She’s pissed at herself for having not seen it, and she’s pissed at Harvey for it being true at all.
Harvey teeters on his heels in the doorway of his office, looking over Donna’s desk with a rather pensive look. He’s trying to figure out where she might be, furrowed eyebrows giving him completely away. He doesn’t understand why she’s been at lunch for so long. She won’t even answer the phone when she calls. It leaves him winded, like he’s been throw off of a fifty story building.
His lips are pressed together, tight to reveal his confusion. He tries not to think anything of it, tries not to attribute it to anything he’s done. She hasn’t returned from an extended lunch where she was looking in on her parents, and she always answers when he calls to find out that everything is going well. Surely she isn’t avoiding him.
“Rachel,” he greets as she’s walking by Donna’s desk with determination. She halts in her step and lifts her eyes to his, the confusion written all over it. She swallows thickly. “Have you seen Donna? She’s not back from lunch yet and she isn’t answering my calls.”
“Oh,” Rachel acknowledges. She takes a step closer to Harvey. She sucks in a deep breath and tries to focus on him. Despite the fact that she’s Donna’s best friend and Mike’s girlfriend, Harvey still hardly ever addresses her. “She didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?” Harvey asks, panic spreading over his features so quickly that she visibly recoils.
“Donna’s at the hospital,” Rachel says.
“Shit,” Harvey mutters immediately.
He turns briskly on his heel to get his overcoat from his desk chair to pull on over his vest. He should probably grab his jacket because it’s still a little on the cold side, but he doesn’t even hesitate to think about it. He walks so quickly passed Rachel that his ”Is she okay?” falls on deaf ears.
His finger pushes into the elevator call button, bouncing repeatedly against it like that will cause it to hurry. He feels beads of sweat gather at his forehead and he lifts his hand to wipe it away. He’s losing his steely composure right here, waiting for the same elevator that his most recent love interest disappeared into nearly an hour ago. He hasn’t cared to do anything but talk to Donna since.
He can feel beady eyes training on him from all around the floor and he knows that he can’t be seen losing his cool exterior over Donna time and time again, but he can’t help himself. The contours on his face are worry lines etched from a perplexing amount of time spent thinking about his secretary’s well-being, especially as of late. Maybe he had destroyed his relationship with Scottie by putting Donna within arm’s reach, but he just can’t help himself.
The fret spreads throughout his body and collects in his fingertips, a mere ache echoing in his chest as he taps the toe of his shoe against the marble linoleum. He can’t take the wait, the anxiety pinching his muscles, and he makes a mad dash for the stairs. Anyone watching would think him to be an idiot, a fool, a man who doesn’t deserve his name on the goddamn wall. His hand collides with the door to the stairs and the vibration lingers against his palm all the way to his elbow.
He skips a step and takes off down the stairs. He’s frantic and frantically worried about how he’s going to make it down 50 flights of stairs, but it’s a passing thought. He hardly hesitates at doors as the soles of his shoes tap against the mostly unused tile. He briefly asks himself why anyone would take the stairs more than just a few floors, but he knows the answer to that: they wouldn’t.
Harvey’s shoes slide against the dirty linoleum of the hospital floor. His legs are killing him from running down the stairs. He’d made it to the 35th floor before darting into an elevator before the doors slid closed, but that didn’t help him get passed the traffic once flagging down cab number 55. The entire 25 minutes he was sitting in the backseat, the stuffy smell of an old meatball sandwich flooding his nostrils, his knee was bouncing and the cab driver was shooting glares at him through the rearview mirror. The car had only moved 5 blocks before he muttered an angry fuck it!, tossed the driver a half-hearted thanks and handed over a 50.
His life is divisible by 5’s today. He’s always thought of Donna as a 5, not on a scale of 1-10, but in relation to numerology. When he was a kid, he used to read up on things like horoscopes and numerology, like it would help him fix his broken home, but he was wrong. There are some things from that time that never left his mind, especially after he met Donna. She’s a 5. She craves change but she’s surprisingly loyal. She’s a free spirit, stubborn, demands her way off of just one look, well-liked, and keeps him grounded. She is the definition of the number 5.
So, he ran the last 10 blocks like it’s all a sign that Scottie stormed out of his office on the 20th of October after 5 months of dating and 5 times of trying to make a go at it. He isn’t superstitious by nature, he just really likes what the 5 represents. It represents change, but doesn’t promise anything.
His breath catches in his throat and he can feel the ripples in his chest, the air evading his lungs like he can’t even remember that breathing is an involuntary process. He expels a breath as he drags a hand through his hair and makes it stand upright, a hitch in his put together appearance that leaves a flaw that he wouldn’t be able to explain if asked. His demeanor is desperate as his heavy legs carry him to the receptionist like she’s actually going to tell him anything.
“Excuse me,” he says to get her attention, “I’m looking for my friend.” He can’t wait to see how this is going to go. He’s sure this woman in front of him will tell him something if he just describes his secretary to her - he’s almost certain.
“Name?”
His gaze narrows sharply. She’s really testing his patience now. “Donna Paulsen.”
He doesn’t even know why he said her name. It isn’t like she’s going to be anywhere in the system. She isn’t a patient. He lightly shakes his head at the gaping cracks in his façade as his lips purse tightly together. He swallows and adds, “she’s my friend. I’m worried about her.”
“Right,” the woman says slowly as she stares at the computer screen looking mostly bored, “that name isn’t here.”
“Under Paulsen? There isn’t anything?” He tries again.
The woman looks at him over the rim of her glasses. “Did you check the ER?”
He absently licks his lips and pushes out a slightly annoyed breath. “No.”
“Check there,” the woman replies dismissively.
“Listen,” he says forcefully, “Paulsen, Ruth Paulsen, she’s been a patient here for three weeks. They were moving her today. Her daughter is my friend.”
He’s referred to Donna as his friend more times today than he ever has since the day that he met her, collectively. He chastises himself for grasping onto that term like he’s no longer just trying to convince everyone else but also himself. His weight rests on his heels as his fingers grasp at the counter in his attempts to remain standing.
“Ruth Paulsen is in room ten oh five,” the woman replies with a sigh. He doesn’t mean to inconvenience her.
He mumbles a thanks, like he’s been doing so much in the last half hour because he doesn’t really care to talk to anyone right now. He just needs a little reassurance from Donna that she’s okay, it’s all okay and everything will continue being okay, but the likelihood of that happening is slim at the moment. He’s the one who has to step up and be her friend; he has to tell her that it’s all going to be okay when his heart is in his stomach at the realization that he cares about her more than he ever could care about anyone else.
He counts to five and heads towards the elevator with bravado. He throws his shoulders back and stands a little straighter, attempting to appear more put together for her sake. In the elevator, he uses time consuming stop and go of people getting off on their respective floors to straighten himself up. His fingers push at his hair to make sure none of it is sticking up, he pulls at his tie only to push it back in hopes that it will no longer be askew, and he slides his hands down the lapels of his suit. His eyes briefly close as he expels a breath, thinking of all the times she’s gone over the same motions.
He exorcizes a breath as the elevator doors slide open and steps off, making a beeline for the administrative desk for the oncology floor. He briefly feels relief when he sees red hair in the distance but when she turns on her heel and her gaze catches his it quickly flees. All he feels is uncertainty.
“Donna,” he calls, approaching her faster.
Her eyes sharpen on him and he can feel her gaze cut through his bones. She takes a stern step in his direction and before he’s even come to a halt, her open palm collides with his cheek. The sound of flesh on flesh rings in his ears. When he looks at her with furrowed brows, she looks like she’s about to combust.
“I can’t believe you would pull this shit with me right now.”
He’s reeling over the events of the last two hours; this isn’t just the hammer coming down.
She feels his hand wrap around her wrist as she turns to put distance between them. She can’t look him in the eye and hang on to her steely composure. She’s barely holding it all together, barely able to keep tears from falling. Immediately after she felt his cheek beneath her fingers, she’d begun to wonder why she’d even done it at all.
“Donna,” he says again. She can hear the wavering confidence in his voice as his fingers flex against her skin.
She begrudgingly lifts her gaze to his and almost instantly falls apart. Her knees buckle beneath her and the only thing that keeps her standing is his hand on her wrist. Tears prick her eyes and when it finally registers for him that’s she’s crying, his hands settle on her waist. She can feel his fingers slide over her waistline and curl into the fabric of her dress.
His fingers grasp at the black silk like he can only thing about what it feels like to have her pressed against him even though she’s crying. Her fingers tug at the lapels of his jacket and she can feel his pristine suit crinkling beneath her hands. She doesn’t mean to grasp onto him so tightly, doesn’t mean to use him as a comfort, but she supposes that she has been using him to keep her sane for months.
“Donna,” he says lowly, “what happened?”
Her tears cling to his jacket but he doesn’t comment on it. She chokes on her words, can’t tie them together to form coherent sentences. She wants to answer him, wants to tell him, but she’s reached her peak of things that she can handle. She can’t keep herself from crying no matter how hard she’s trying to keep the tears at bay.
The feel of his arms around her, elbows digging into either side of her spine as he buries his hand into her hair, and she feels safe. She’s afraid that if she tries to move then she’ll lose all ability to remain standing, and the last thing she needs is to be a mess on the floor. She isn’t Harvey’s problem and she doesn’t know why she’s leaned so heavily on him when he has his own life, a life that doesn’t include her.
“Donna,” Harvey tries again.
His voice rings in her ears and she imagines him telling her things that he would never say, imagines a scenario that would never happen in a million years. Her mind hasn’t drifted to a universe where he’s the one who consoles her, where he tells her that he’ll take care of everything, where he tells her that he loves her, in years. But, for a moment, her chest isn’t tightening and she forgets that she’s actually there because both of her parents are in the hospital.
Her hair curls around her fingers. “Did something happen?”
She finally pulls back and looks him in the eye. “My father had a heart attack.”
“I’m sorry,” he replies immediately, “I’m so sorry.”
“Scottie left,” she says, like it’s important.
Harvey’s mouth hangs open as he forms words to convey what he’s thinking. “We broke up, but that doesn’t matter right now.”
“Donna!” Her sister yells from the elevators. Donna’s attention is ripped from the man in front of her as she shifts her gaze to him. Her sister isn’t even close to the comfort she was getting from Harvey.
1, bang bang
author's note: speculation based off of a view spoilers for the end of season 3
It ends with a bang.
”You’re with her all the time!”
“She’s my assistant.”
“You’re taking her to dinner, Harvey!”
“She’s my friend.”
“You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”
“Well, it can all be explained.”
“You’re so exhausting, you know that?”
“Listen, I’m not trying to be difficult here, Scottie. She’s my assistant. She’s my friend. She’s going through things.”
“What things?”
“I can’t tell you that, Scottie. I can’t betray her like that.”
“Your loyalty to her is astounding. You’d really risk it all for her.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No, it’s a promise. I can’t do this with you anymore. You’ll choose her every single time. Whatever is happening here isn’t as innocent as you seem to think it is. It isn’t just dinner into the wee hours of the morning or how you two work in such close proximity. I think you love her and you’re just too afraid to admit it. I made a huge mistake asking Donna if she loved you. I asked the wrong person. I should have been asking you all along.”
“It’s not like that.”
“It’s not like that. It’s never been like that. Except it’s always been like that. You’ve never questioned your feelings for her and you never will. How you feel about her is so obvious. I’m such an idiot for thinking it was all in my head.”
“Scottie.”
“No, Harvey, don’t try to pretend like I’m just being a ridiculous girl who is overreacting, this is a thing that’s been happening for a very long time and you’re just too scared to admit it to yourself.”
“Is this about Donna, or…?”
“Actually, it’s not. It’s hardly about Donna. It’s about the way you feel about Donna, about another woman. I’m not doing this anymore, Harvey. I’m not competing with another woman for your attention. It’s already taken everything out of me.”
“Scottie, I advise you not to walk out that door.”
“He’s all yours,” Scottie tells Donna as she passes her.
Scottie is stomping towards the elevator, heels digging into the carpet like she’s trying to leave her mark in the floor. Donna absently wonders if Scottie is imagining Harvey’s face beneath her feet. She doesn’t understand what happened that prompted Scottie to say that, but she is certain that she had nothing to do with it. Contrary to popular belief, Harvey doesn’t tell her everything.
Donna is absolutely confused by Scottie’s words, and they cause her to clutch her purse tight enough that her knuckles turn white. Donna couldn’t possibly have been so obvious in how she was feeling about her boss’ new relationship, she couldn’t possibly have been. She’s never that obvious. She couldn’t imagine being that obvious now.
Her eyes follow Scottie to the elevators and the two women lock eyes. Scottie smiles at her sadly, almost apologetically, as she tries to keep the tears at bay. There’s no way that this is the end. Scottie is still a lawyer at this firm. They’ll have to work it out. There is no way that she’s out like a lion.
Scottie steps onto the elevator and pushes the button for the bottom floor. From a distance, it looks like Scottie is punched in the gut as she finally loses her composure. She collapses against the wall of the elevator and disappears from Donna’s view as the doors slide closed accordingly. Donna considers what it’s like - everything working mechanically and the world continuing to move even when Scottie is collapsing. She feels bad for the woman.
Before she can even make it any further onto the 50th floor, she is accosted in the entryway by Mike and Rachel.
“What just happened?” Donna combats before either of them can say anything. Rachel’s hands clasp Donna’s forearms like she’s trying to keep her there.
“Okay,” Mike begins, expelling a breath, “I might have accidentally told Scottie that Harvey is probably in love with you.”
“Excuse me?!” Donna nearly screams. “There isn’t a chance that he’s in love with me. Why would you tell her that?”
“Donna,” Rachel adds evenly, a sly grin gracing her features, “you can’t be serious.”
“Rachel,” Donna replies sternly; her gaze narrows hard on the pair in front of her, “weren’t you the one who encouraged me to go out and get a life outside of this office?”
“You did what?” Mike asks, lips pursing accusingly.
Rachel’s cheeks redden, “I may have said - You know what? It doesn’t matter. What is important here is that Harvey and Scottie just broke up.”
“Yeah, okay,” Donna says with a breath. She balances on her heels like she’s trying to compose herself. “But it isn’t for good, right? It isn’t because of me.”
“Your name did come up,” Mike admits.
“Shit.”
“It’s okay, Honey,” Rachel attempts to console her, “I don’t think-“
“No,” Donna interjects, “why is this even being brought up? I don’t understand why anyone is telling Scottie anything and why it’s suddenly a thing now. It doesn’t make sense.”
“She was mad about him spending extracurricular time with you,” Mike answers with a shrug. Donna doesn’t like the way that he’s acting like it’s no big deal. This does not get the Donna seal of approval. She narrows her eyes hard at Mike’s phrasing and he swallows equally as hard. “He said that you’re going through some stuff and he wouldn’t tell her anything else so she got mad about his loyalty to you.”
For a moment she grins like she won and doesn’t even realize she’s done it until Rachel quirks an eyebrow and tilts her head knowingly. Donna pushes a hand against her hip and looks at them both pointedly. Mike squirms a little, uncertain how she can seem to be staring them both down at the same time. No wonder Donna always wins.
“Look, our friendship is not anything beyond that. He doesn’t have feelings for me and I don’t have feelings for him,” Donna reasons.
“You were-“
“You were just smiling like you won an award,” Rachel interrupts before Mike can get it all of the way out. Somehow, he thinks that it will be a lot safer coming out of Rachel’s mouth and he’s really glad that they are on the same page about this. “Harvey didn’t deny anything that Scottie was saying.”
“Everybody but you two can see that there’s something between you,” Mike points out. He shrinks immediately under Donna’s glare. For someone so smart, he can be real fucking stupid sometimes. “Look, all I’m saying is that maybe there’s something between you two. You are the only one he really cares about.”
“That’s just not true,” Donna denies. “He cares about you. And Jessica. And Scottie.”
“Do you remember that fake trial we had? He followed you out of the room, Donna,” Rachel argues back, “you’re the only person he will show the whole world that he has a weakness for. He wanted to be sure that you were okay. He’s willing to risk his relationship with Scottie now because he thinks that something is wrong with you, and I’m willing to bet that the thing wrong with you is that he’s with Scottie.”
Donna squints angrily, jaw tensed like she’s about to go toe to toe with her friend. “That’s just not true.”
“You sound like a broken record,” Mike retorts with a snort.
Rachel catches Donna’s arm before she can make a move towards Mike. Rachel has half a mind to believe that her friend is moments away from ripping her boyfriend’s face off. She would support it if the issue were anything other than this one. She’s seen the dynamics of Harvey and Donna shift so much over the last few months, and she’s noticed that on a more personal level, despite him being a newly committed man, they’ve still managed to get closer.
Lucky for Mike, Donna’s phone rings in her purse. She tosses the associate a glare as she digs through it but Mike only seems to stand taller. Rachel looks over and thinks that he is only moments away from pissing in his pants and she’s stifling a laugh in the confinements of her throat.
Her eyes dart to Donna as her demeanor saddens and she says: “I’ll be right there.”
The phone is barely away from her ear before she adds, “I have to go. My father had a heart attack and he’s in the hospital.”
Donna feels an ache in her chest. Forty years of living and she’s never felt an ache quite like this, and she’s scared. No, not scared. She’s terrified. She’s terrified that her father isn’t going to make it through yet another thing, let alone her mother.
She’s been spending a lot of time with Harvey outside of work, yes that’s true, but what no one outside of him knows is that it’s because her mother has cancer. And now, of all the things, her father’s had a heart attack. She might as well order the hospital to bunk them up together. At the rate they’re going, she might as well get a pen ready to sign whatever papers she’s going to have to sign.
For a moment, she wonders why this is her burden - why she’s the one who is supposed to take care of her parents when she has 5 siblings who are completely capable of pitching in. She’s spent half of her life being chastised for not doing everything that her parents wanted and now she’s the one who has to make sure they take their medication like they’re supposed to, that her father doesn’t skip a meal when her mother is in the hospital, and now that they’re in a room together so they can both be looked after.
Her phone rings just as she walks into the hospital. She doesn’t need to look at the name on the caller id to know who it is. She doesn’t need to look at it to know that Harvey is calling her to find out where she is, if she’s okay. He’s been doing that lately, calling just to check on her and make sure that she’s okay like she needs someone to take care of her.
She wonders if maybe there’s some truth to what everyone believes. She wonders if he could love her, if he loves her, if he would ever do anything about it - surely not - not when Scottie will be back to stake her claim over and over again. She’s almost certain that they will fix everything by Monday morning.
Harvey isn’t capable of hiding his feelings from her. He wouldn’t be able to have feelings for her without there being a tell. Momentarily, she thinks that maybe she’s just been refusing to see it while masking her true feelings about him and Scottie. She wonders if she was fooling everyone or just herself.
There’s truth to what Mike and Rachel had said. She’s pissed at herself for having not seen it, and she’s pissed at Harvey for it being true at all.
Harvey teeters on his heels in the doorway of his office, looking over Donna’s desk with a rather pensive look. He’s trying to figure out where she might be, furrowed eyebrows giving him completely away. He doesn’t understand why she’s been at lunch for so long. She won’t even answer the phone when she calls. It leaves him winded, like he’s been throw off of a fifty story building.
His lips are pressed together, tight to reveal his confusion. He tries not to think anything of it, tries not to attribute it to anything he’s done. She hasn’t returned from an extended lunch where she was looking in on her parents, and she always answers when he calls to find out that everything is going well. Surely she isn’t avoiding him.
“Rachel,” he greets as she’s walking by Donna’s desk with determination. She halts in her step and lifts her eyes to his, the confusion written all over it. She swallows thickly. “Have you seen Donna? She’s not back from lunch yet and she isn’t answering my calls.”
“Oh,” Rachel acknowledges. She takes a step closer to Harvey. She sucks in a deep breath and tries to focus on him. Despite the fact that she’s Donna’s best friend and Mike’s girlfriend, Harvey still hardly ever addresses her. “She didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?” Harvey asks, panic spreading over his features so quickly that she visibly recoils.
“Donna’s at the hospital,” Rachel says.
“Shit,” Harvey mutters immediately.
He turns briskly on his heel to get his overcoat from his desk chair to pull on over his vest. He should probably grab his jacket because it’s still a little on the cold side, but he doesn’t even hesitate to think about it. He walks so quickly passed Rachel that his ”Is she okay?” falls on deaf ears.
His finger pushes into the elevator call button, bouncing repeatedly against it like that will cause it to hurry. He feels beads of sweat gather at his forehead and he lifts his hand to wipe it away. He’s losing his steely composure right here, waiting for the same elevator that his most recent love interest disappeared into nearly an hour ago. He hasn’t cared to do anything but talk to Donna since.
He can feel beady eyes training on him from all around the floor and he knows that he can’t be seen losing his cool exterior over Donna time and time again, but he can’t help himself. The contours on his face are worry lines etched from a perplexing amount of time spent thinking about his secretary’s well-being, especially as of late. Maybe he had destroyed his relationship with Scottie by putting Donna within arm’s reach, but he just can’t help himself.
The fret spreads throughout his body and collects in his fingertips, a mere ache echoing in his chest as he taps the toe of his shoe against the marble linoleum. He can’t take the wait, the anxiety pinching his muscles, and he makes a mad dash for the stairs. Anyone watching would think him to be an idiot, a fool, a man who doesn’t deserve his name on the goddamn wall. His hand collides with the door to the stairs and the vibration lingers against his palm all the way to his elbow.
He skips a step and takes off down the stairs. He’s frantic and frantically worried about how he’s going to make it down 50 flights of stairs, but it’s a passing thought. He hardly hesitates at doors as the soles of his shoes tap against the mostly unused tile. He briefly asks himself why anyone would take the stairs more than just a few floors, but he knows the answer to that: they wouldn’t.
Harvey’s shoes slide against the dirty linoleum of the hospital floor. His legs are killing him from running down the stairs. He’d made it to the 35th floor before darting into an elevator before the doors slid closed, but that didn’t help him get passed the traffic once flagging down cab number 55. The entire 25 minutes he was sitting in the backseat, the stuffy smell of an old meatball sandwich flooding his nostrils, his knee was bouncing and the cab driver was shooting glares at him through the rearview mirror. The car had only moved 5 blocks before he muttered an angry fuck it!, tossed the driver a half-hearted thanks and handed over a 50.
His life is divisible by 5’s today. He’s always thought of Donna as a 5, not on a scale of 1-10, but in relation to numerology. When he was a kid, he used to read up on things like horoscopes and numerology, like it would help him fix his broken home, but he was wrong. There are some things from that time that never left his mind, especially after he met Donna. She’s a 5. She craves change but she’s surprisingly loyal. She’s a free spirit, stubborn, demands her way off of just one look, well-liked, and keeps him grounded. She is the definition of the number 5.
So, he ran the last 10 blocks like it’s all a sign that Scottie stormed out of his office on the 20th of October after 5 months of dating and 5 times of trying to make a go at it. He isn’t superstitious by nature, he just really likes what the 5 represents. It represents change, but doesn’t promise anything.
His breath catches in his throat and he can feel the ripples in his chest, the air evading his lungs like he can’t even remember that breathing is an involuntary process. He expels a breath as he drags a hand through his hair and makes it stand upright, a hitch in his put together appearance that leaves a flaw that he wouldn’t be able to explain if asked. His demeanor is desperate as his heavy legs carry him to the receptionist like she’s actually going to tell him anything.
“Excuse me,” he says to get her attention, “I’m looking for my friend.” He can’t wait to see how this is going to go. He’s sure this woman in front of him will tell him something if he just describes his secretary to her - he’s almost certain.
“Name?”
His gaze narrows sharply. She’s really testing his patience now. “Donna Paulsen.”
He doesn’t even know why he said her name. It isn’t like she’s going to be anywhere in the system. She isn’t a patient. He lightly shakes his head at the gaping cracks in his façade as his lips purse tightly together. He swallows and adds, “she’s my friend. I’m worried about her.”
“Right,” the woman says slowly as she stares at the computer screen looking mostly bored, “that name isn’t here.”
“Under Paulsen? There isn’t anything?” He tries again.
The woman looks at him over the rim of her glasses. “Did you check the ER?”
He absently licks his lips and pushes out a slightly annoyed breath. “No.”
“Check there,” the woman replies dismissively.
“Listen,” he says forcefully, “Paulsen, Ruth Paulsen, she’s been a patient here for three weeks. They were moving her today. Her daughter is my friend.”
He’s referred to Donna as his friend more times today than he ever has since the day that he met her, collectively. He chastises himself for grasping onto that term like he’s no longer just trying to convince everyone else but also himself. His weight rests on his heels as his fingers grasp at the counter in his attempts to remain standing.
“Ruth Paulsen is in room ten oh five,” the woman replies with a sigh. He doesn’t mean to inconvenience her.
He mumbles a thanks, like he’s been doing so much in the last half hour because he doesn’t really care to talk to anyone right now. He just needs a little reassurance from Donna that she’s okay, it’s all okay and everything will continue being okay, but the likelihood of that happening is slim at the moment. He’s the one who has to step up and be her friend; he has to tell her that it’s all going to be okay when his heart is in his stomach at the realization that he cares about her more than he ever could care about anyone else.
He counts to five and heads towards the elevator with bravado. He throws his shoulders back and stands a little straighter, attempting to appear more put together for her sake. In the elevator, he uses time consuming stop and go of people getting off on their respective floors to straighten himself up. His fingers push at his hair to make sure none of it is sticking up, he pulls at his tie only to push it back in hopes that it will no longer be askew, and he slides his hands down the lapels of his suit. His eyes briefly close as he expels a breath, thinking of all the times she’s gone over the same motions.
He exorcizes a breath as the elevator doors slide open and steps off, making a beeline for the administrative desk for the oncology floor. He briefly feels relief when he sees red hair in the distance but when she turns on her heel and her gaze catches his it quickly flees. All he feels is uncertainty.
“Donna,” he calls, approaching her faster.
Her eyes sharpen on him and he can feel her gaze cut through his bones. She takes a stern step in his direction and before he’s even come to a halt, her open palm collides with his cheek. The sound of flesh on flesh rings in his ears. When he looks at her with furrowed brows, she looks like she’s about to combust.
“I can’t believe you would pull this shit with me right now.”
He’s reeling over the events of the last two hours; this isn’t just the hammer coming down.
She feels his hand wrap around her wrist as she turns to put distance between them. She can’t look him in the eye and hang on to her steely composure. She’s barely holding it all together, barely able to keep tears from falling. Immediately after she felt his cheek beneath her fingers, she’d begun to wonder why she’d even done it at all.
“Donna,” he says again. She can hear the wavering confidence in his voice as his fingers flex against her skin.
She begrudgingly lifts her gaze to his and almost instantly falls apart. Her knees buckle beneath her and the only thing that keeps her standing is his hand on her wrist. Tears prick her eyes and when it finally registers for him that’s she’s crying, his hands settle on her waist. She can feel his fingers slide over her waistline and curl into the fabric of her dress.
His fingers grasp at the black silk like he can only thing about what it feels like to have her pressed against him even though she’s crying. Her fingers tug at the lapels of his jacket and she can feel his pristine suit crinkling beneath her hands. She doesn’t mean to grasp onto him so tightly, doesn’t mean to use him as a comfort, but she supposes that she has been using him to keep her sane for months.
“Donna,” he says lowly, “what happened?”
Her tears cling to his jacket but he doesn’t comment on it. She chokes on her words, can’t tie them together to form coherent sentences. She wants to answer him, wants to tell him, but she’s reached her peak of things that she can handle. She can’t keep herself from crying no matter how hard she’s trying to keep the tears at bay.
The feel of his arms around her, elbows digging into either side of her spine as he buries his hand into her hair, and she feels safe. She’s afraid that if she tries to move then she’ll lose all ability to remain standing, and the last thing she needs is to be a mess on the floor. She isn’t Harvey’s problem and she doesn’t know why she’s leaned so heavily on him when he has his own life, a life that doesn’t include her.
“Donna,” Harvey tries again.
His voice rings in her ears and she imagines him telling her things that he would never say, imagines a scenario that would never happen in a million years. Her mind hasn’t drifted to a universe where he’s the one who consoles her, where he tells her that he’ll take care of everything, where he tells her that he loves her, in years. But, for a moment, her chest isn’t tightening and she forgets that she’s actually there because both of her parents are in the hospital.
Her hair curls around her fingers. “Did something happen?”
She finally pulls back and looks him in the eye. “My father had a heart attack.”
“I’m sorry,” he replies immediately, “I’m so sorry.”
“Scottie left,” she says, like it’s important.
Harvey’s mouth hangs open as he forms words to convey what he’s thinking. “We broke up, but that doesn’t matter right now.”
“Donna!” Her sister yells from the elevators. Donna’s attention is ripped from the man in front of her as she shifts her gaze to him. Her sister isn’t even close to the comfort she was getting from Harvey.