234. {c} [suits] (harvey/donna) circles (2/10?)
circles ; pg-13, language ; 2,976 words; chapter 2a ;
harvey/donna ; this chapter is donna-centric (mentions of harvey, scottie and rachel)
an introduction to what should have been; it's a vicious circle and no one can quite get their head straight
Donna meets Rachel at a place called The Dove Parlour where they play classical instruments and the orange glow mocks her headspace. Harvey would love the place, it encompasses the ‘better-than-you’ quality he carries on his shoulders. She absently wonders how many times he’s been to it as she takes a seat at the table across from Rachel, setting her purse on the table against the wall. The purse is one that Harvey bought for her years ago, a gray silky texture that matches more than she’d be willing to admit; he picked it out and talked her into it. Everything surrounding her reminds her of Harvey.
This was not what she had planned - her idea of a safe haven being reduced to nothing in the scrutinizing presence of Harvey Reginald Specter despite him being very much absent in physicality. The voices in her head are screaming “that’s the spirit” and they all sound like him. She wants nothing more than to claw at her head to make it all stop, to make him go away, to make everything stop reminding her of her boss or her friend or whatever he’s calling himself these days.
“You ready to tell me what today was about?” Rachel asks.
“Hello to you as well, Rachel,” Donna says patronizingly, “cut right to the chase, do we? Not even willing to wait to get a few drinks in me?”
“I’m sorry,” Rachel says, almost shouting. Donna looks around the restaurant like everyone is looking at them before ducking her head in shame. Everyone will know that she was in the bathroom crying over a man, over her boss to be more precise, in no time. She’s sure of it. “I’ve just been worried about you all day.”
“You’re a good friend,” Donna says, although a bit absently, “but I’d be calling you a great friend if you had ordered me a drink.”
Rachel smirks. She says, “I ordered a bottle for the table. Who do you think I am?”
“Good girl,” Donna says, approval spreading across her face in the form of a smile.
The bottle makes it to the table and the rather young waiter pours their glasses full with the liquid. Donna almost allows herself to become distracted in the waiter’s good looks - his chiseled jaw, dirty blond hair, white teeth and perfect posture - but somehow he only ends up reminding her of a young Harvey. She’s pressed to make conversation, something that usually comes so easily to her but she can’t even begin to manage. She wonders how long this has been coming, her silence, and it grates on her nerves that Harvey is getting married before her.
And she slips somehow. She guesses the alcohol goes straight to her head because when she opens her mouth, the response that she’s trying to form isn’t what actually falls out. She’s trying to respond to Rachel’s question about being her date to a fashion show next Friday but instead all Donna can say is completely the wrong thing.
Donna says then, “I can’t believe he’s getting married.”
Rachel’s eyebrows understandably furrow in confusion. “What?” She asks.
“Harvey,” Donna replies pointedly, “he’s getting married to Scottie. I never thought they would work. He was bound to make a mistake, especially in the whole Mike fiasco, but he still made it to a marriage proposal. Do you think they’ll actually make it to the wedding?”
Rachel’s eyes are wide, Donna notices then. Donna can’t figure out if it’s because she has taken her friend off guard by what she said or if it’s the fact that she actually said it in the first place. Rachel swallows, or gulps.
“I think,” Rachel starts, but she trails off for a few moments. Donna isn’t sure if she’s actually expecting a reply from Rachel or if she’s only rambling. She absently asks herself when she became such a lightweight. Rachel shrugs and says, “I don’t really know Harvey that well. Whatever you think.”
To Donna, Rachel’s statement sounds more like a question. Like she’s being asked what she thinks about Harvey getting married. To a woman who isn’t her. Donna shrugs then, too.
“It doesn’t matter to me,” Donna says, and adds, “I’m fine with it.”
A sudden realization must hit Rachel across the head because she narrows her gaze forcefully and Donna feels as though she is being judged. Rachel asks, “Are you fine with it? Really?”
“Why-“
“Because you don’t look fine,” Rachel interjects, “You look like you’re about to lose your shit.”
“Rachel! You don’t have to be so crude,” Donna returns.
“I’m not,” Rachel says into her glass, “You’re just three sheets to the wind. You’re usually so calm. Collected.”
“I can’t be everything all the time,” Donna says. She’s probably never spoken truer words, she decides then and there.
Harvey notes that Donna isn’t being Donna lately. She’s tamed. Not that he considers her a woman who can be calculated in any way, shape or form, but he thinks that one of two things is happening. One, she’s off her game, and in the fifteen years he has known her she has never been off her game. Or two, Donna isn’t saying to him everything that she’s thinking or what’s on her mind.
He begins to do things to test her like missing a spot while shaving, leaving the knot in his tie slightly askew, or even letting a lone hair stick up like he’s suddenly inherited a cowlick. Although her gaze seems to linger on these few spots for just a second, she never says anything. It leaves him unsettled because that isn’t the Donna he knows. The Donna he knows gets off on fixing things, on making everything good and right, by making him not just presentable but unforgettable.
The last thing he needs to be doing is thinking about Donna getting off or her overall satisfaction, her pleasure in the course or discourse of her life. There are many other things he should be thinking about because, as she once said, how she sleeps is none of his concern. Even though he thought about it before that doesn’t give him any right to think about it now. In fact, he shouldn’t even be beginning to entertain the thought anymore.
Yet, despite the fact that Scottie has one leg draped over his lap and her front angled against his arm as they sit on the couch in his (their?) condo, all he can think about is the tears that graced Donna’s cheeks just a few days ago. His brain, his evil evil brain, that has taken him in the direction of playboy for most of his adult years, does as it does best, and convinces him that he should have wiped her tears away.
He supposes that in an alternate reality, he had wiped her tears away. His thumbs had brushed over her cheekbones as he whispered to her words of consolation, pleading with her not to cry, and when she had smiled ever so softly, cheeks reddened from tears or embarrassment he’s not sure, he couldn’t help himself and he kissed her. Harvey wonders if in the alternate reality, kissing her would be something that he was allowed to do. Or maybe rewarded with? He thinks in that alternate reality he would have kissed her hand, until her lips were bruised and his mouth was wet, and he would have proceeded to pull her to him until the Donna he would know in that alternate reality would grab hold of him and assert her quiet control. She would lead him into his bedroom like she’s been thousands of times and plans to be there thousands more and she would make love to him. She would whisper that she loved him over and over as she writhed beneath him, fingernails digging into his skin with her engagement ring burning his flesh in the best way and hair splaying beneath her head.
That’s the alternate reality away from this one. The one away from Scottie pressed against him, flipping through a magazine about weddings as ESPN becomes a blur before his very eyes and this reality becomes one that makes him sick to his stomach as he aches to read that letter that sits in his briefcase just twelve fucking feet away. The alternate reality though is just a fictional lie that he’s made up in his head. He thinks that vomit crawls up the back of his throat before sliding back down to his stomach - physically sick from the space between him and his redheaded secretary.
“I think I’m going to bed,” he says, barely above a whisper as he points the remote at the television and clicks it off.
“Already?” Scottie asks, pouts, and adds, “But it’s so early.”
“I’m not feeling too well,” Harvey replies, “probably bad Chinese or something.”
Boldface lie. He hasn’t had Chinese in weeks.
“Okay,” she says with a nod. Her eyes light up though and she smiles. “We can talk about all of my wedding ideas tomorrow.”
Oh joy, he thinks. “Over breakfast or lunch?”
“Dinner,” she answers. He nods his acknowledgement but doesn’t muster a response. Either she doesn’t notice or she isn’t bothered by it because she goes back to flipping through the pages of her bridal magazine.
On his way back to the bedroom, his stomach starts doing flips again. He isn’t sure when he started having such a weak stomach, but the situation has managed to stress him out so much that he can’t even sit in the room with his fiancée without feeling sick to his stomach. The record, the letter and the not quite known contents inside of it, is pressing heavily on his shoulders.
He can hardly think straight and it’s distracting him at work, not to mention it makes being at home nearly unbearable. He doesn’t really want to retort into a situation in which he doesn’t feel like he can even be in the presence of his betrothed, but there’s just something deep in his gut that isn’t settling right. He doesn’t even know what to attribute that to at this point. He’s sure there are many different things which he could.
However, as he crosses the threshold to the bedroom, his stomach tightens in knots and he can feel vomit creep up his esophagus. The urge to throw up clouds his senses and he moves much faster into the bathroom. He barely makes it to the toilet on time to empty the contents of his stomach into the bowl.
All he can think about is what’s inside that letter.
“Harvey is the dumbest man I have ever met in my entire life,” Donna slurs. Rachel notes then that Donna has been rambling about Harvey for approximately 2 hours and 27 minutes. It is literally the last thing she needed considering she has an exam bright and early in the morning. “He can’t even make his own phone calls. I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t even know Scottie’s phone number.”
“I don’t know Mike’s phone number,” Rachel points out flippantly. She does, however, remember Logan Sanders’ phone number like she knows the back of her hand. She can relate to Donna in a sense, but Rachel was at least in love with the guy. Rachel shrugs and says, “Maybe you should tell him how you feel.”
Donna laughs, loudly. It rings something terrible in Rachel’s ears and Rachel can’t exactly pinpoint exactly what the laughter is even for. She gulps then as Donna looks at her with a narrowed gaze.
“How I feel is none of his concern,” Donna equivocates, “And besides, I do not have feelings for Harvey Specter. That would make me the dumbest woman on earth to have feelings for a perpetual bachelor who is currently fooling himself that a marriage to his collegiate love interest slash inevitable enemy could ever last. Did you know she cheated on her fiancé with him?”
“I,” Rachel trails off. The moral high ground is a touchy subject for her at best.
“He’s only with her right now because I talked him into it,” Donna says.
Rachel furrows her eyebrows in confusion then. “Why would you do such a thing?”
“Because he’s,” Donna pauses to sigh, heavily, “he’s Harvey and he’s a good man. He deserves to be loved, Rachel. He deserves way more than he gives himself credit for, but of all things he deserves to be loved. Besides, I don’t know how I’m ever supposed to feel okay spending my life with someone, baiting him with the knowledge that at any moment I could choose someone else, unless he has someone.”
“So, you want him to get married?” Rachel really isn’t following.
Donna snaps her fingers angrily then like she’s telling Rachel to catch up. “I want him to be happy and I can’t tell him how to do that. Harvey is completely capable of talking himself out of the things that would make him happy. He only keeps me around because I have his best interest at heart.”
“Do you love him, Donna?” Rachel asks.
Rachel watches a switch flip for Donna, one where she goes from riled up drunk to so far gone that there’s no way for Donna to recover. Rachel silently thanks whatever god’s are above that she has Mike at home and no one is asking her any longer if she loves him like it’s some kind of secret. Rachel thinks of how happy she is that she gets to kiss the man she loves rather than watch and wait for him. She’s probably making a lot of assumptions about Harvey and Donna’s relationship, but that’s primarily because her friend won’t tell her a goddamn thing even after all these years.
Donna swirls the glass in her hand, eyes intently watching the liquid make its way around the rim like she’s looking at the bottom of it for all the answers. Donna sighs heavily before taking a long draw of the rest of the liquid in her glass. Rachel always thought Donna only drank scotch because of Harvey, but she’s learning that it probably just says a lot about how entwined the two of them are.
Donna sets her glass down onto the table, slowly lifting a hazy gaze to Rachel from the other side of the platform. “It’s complicated.”
“Are you in love with him, Donna?” Rachel tries again.
A sober Donna would laugh and tell Rachel that there isn’t even the smallest chance that she is in love with Harvey Specter. A sober Donna would be tight lipped on the matter regarding his upcoming nuptials. A sober Donna disappeared nearly two hours ago.
“I don’t know,” Donna says, honestly, “I think part of me always believed that while I’m not in love with him he would still pick me. He would come after me and would fight to be with me, fight for the chance to make things between us…right. Right isn’t the word - more? I always thought he’d want more, that I wouldn’t just be his secretary, that I would be his everything.”
“Donna, you are his everything,” Rachel argues.
“I’m not, Rachel,” Donna says, voice a little louder and clearer as she disagrees, “He chose to work with me, not have a relationship with me.”
“Wait,” Rachel opens gawks, screeches, “What?!” Rachel’s fairly certain patrons of The Dove Parlour are staring at them now. Rachel tilts her chin downward, crouching her shoulders and, attempting to shield her face, says, “What does that even mean?”
“It means we had sex, one time, ten years ago and we don’t talk about it. I told him I don’t sleep with men I work with and-“
“Stephen,” Rachel interjects boldly, shoulders straightening again.
Donna pauses and sighs, a slight eye roll making an appearance. She grits her teeth and says a bit more forceful, “I don’t sleep with men I work with and he decided that he didn’t want to find out what kind of lawyer he’d be like without me. He chose the job.”
Rachel gapes for a moment, measuring everything that Donna’s saying, and she isn’t exactly sure what to comment on first. “Wait a second,” Rachel suddenly erupts, “You told me you never slept together because you can’t go back.”
“I lied,” Donna says with a shrug.
Rachel narrows her gaze, silently telling Donna that was rude. “You lied when you said you hadn’t slept together. How do I know you’re not lying about being in love with Harvey?”
“Rachel,” Donna squeaks. Rachel hides a smirk against her wine glass and she realizes then that this is only her second glass, and it’s over half full. Donna reaches to the center of the table for a breadstick and clamps her teeth around it with a big bite. “I don’t know how to answer that question.”
“Honestly,” Rachel tries.
“Honestly,” Donna repeats, a bit quieter than Rachel, more vulnerable, “I could love him, if I thought it was okay to, but he’s getting married and it’s too late.” Before Rachel can even swallow what Donna’s said, Donna drops her head into her hands. “What am I gonna do?” Donna mutters to no one in particular.
“I think you’re drunk,” Rachel says suddenly. “Can I hail you a cab?”
“No thank you, Rach,” Donna says, a wave of the hand, “I need to walk it off.”
“Let me walk you home then,” Rachel concedes.
“I could really use another drink,” Donna admits.
Rachel’s shoulders drop just a little, “You’re going to barf.”
“That’s the idea,” Donna says.
Rachel nods and digs through her purse, “let me at least call Mike to walk us.”
“I don’t need a chauffeur,” Donna says.
“Of course not, honey,” Rachel says carefully, reaching out to touch Donna’s hand.
harvey/donna ; this chapter is donna-centric (mentions of harvey, scottie and rachel)
an introduction to what should have been; it's a vicious circle and no one can quite get their head straight
Donna meets Rachel at a place called The Dove Parlour where they play classical instruments and the orange glow mocks her headspace. Harvey would love the place, it encompasses the ‘better-than-you’ quality he carries on his shoulders. She absently wonders how many times he’s been to it as she takes a seat at the table across from Rachel, setting her purse on the table against the wall. The purse is one that Harvey bought for her years ago, a gray silky texture that matches more than she’d be willing to admit; he picked it out and talked her into it. Everything surrounding her reminds her of Harvey.
This was not what she had planned - her idea of a safe haven being reduced to nothing in the scrutinizing presence of Harvey Reginald Specter despite him being very much absent in physicality. The voices in her head are screaming “that’s the spirit” and they all sound like him. She wants nothing more than to claw at her head to make it all stop, to make him go away, to make everything stop reminding her of her boss or her friend or whatever he’s calling himself these days.
“You ready to tell me what today was about?” Rachel asks.
“Hello to you as well, Rachel,” Donna says patronizingly, “cut right to the chase, do we? Not even willing to wait to get a few drinks in me?”
“I’m sorry,” Rachel says, almost shouting. Donna looks around the restaurant like everyone is looking at them before ducking her head in shame. Everyone will know that she was in the bathroom crying over a man, over her boss to be more precise, in no time. She’s sure of it. “I’ve just been worried about you all day.”
“You’re a good friend,” Donna says, although a bit absently, “but I’d be calling you a great friend if you had ordered me a drink.”
Rachel smirks. She says, “I ordered a bottle for the table. Who do you think I am?”
“Good girl,” Donna says, approval spreading across her face in the form of a smile.
The bottle makes it to the table and the rather young waiter pours their glasses full with the liquid. Donna almost allows herself to become distracted in the waiter’s good looks - his chiseled jaw, dirty blond hair, white teeth and perfect posture - but somehow he only ends up reminding her of a young Harvey. She’s pressed to make conversation, something that usually comes so easily to her but she can’t even begin to manage. She wonders how long this has been coming, her silence, and it grates on her nerves that Harvey is getting married before her.
And she slips somehow. She guesses the alcohol goes straight to her head because when she opens her mouth, the response that she’s trying to form isn’t what actually falls out. She’s trying to respond to Rachel’s question about being her date to a fashion show next Friday but instead all Donna can say is completely the wrong thing.
Donna says then, “I can’t believe he’s getting married.”
Rachel’s eyebrows understandably furrow in confusion. “What?” She asks.
“Harvey,” Donna replies pointedly, “he’s getting married to Scottie. I never thought they would work. He was bound to make a mistake, especially in the whole Mike fiasco, but he still made it to a marriage proposal. Do you think they’ll actually make it to the wedding?”
Rachel’s eyes are wide, Donna notices then. Donna can’t figure out if it’s because she has taken her friend off guard by what she said or if it’s the fact that she actually said it in the first place. Rachel swallows, or gulps.
“I think,” Rachel starts, but she trails off for a few moments. Donna isn’t sure if she’s actually expecting a reply from Rachel or if she’s only rambling. She absently asks herself when she became such a lightweight. Rachel shrugs and says, “I don’t really know Harvey that well. Whatever you think.”
To Donna, Rachel’s statement sounds more like a question. Like she’s being asked what she thinks about Harvey getting married. To a woman who isn’t her. Donna shrugs then, too.
“It doesn’t matter to me,” Donna says, and adds, “I’m fine with it.”
A sudden realization must hit Rachel across the head because she narrows her gaze forcefully and Donna feels as though she is being judged. Rachel asks, “Are you fine with it? Really?”
“Why-“
“Because you don’t look fine,” Rachel interjects, “You look like you’re about to lose your shit.”
“Rachel! You don’t have to be so crude,” Donna returns.
“I’m not,” Rachel says into her glass, “You’re just three sheets to the wind. You’re usually so calm. Collected.”
“I can’t be everything all the time,” Donna says. She’s probably never spoken truer words, she decides then and there.
Harvey notes that Donna isn’t being Donna lately. She’s tamed. Not that he considers her a woman who can be calculated in any way, shape or form, but he thinks that one of two things is happening. One, she’s off her game, and in the fifteen years he has known her she has never been off her game. Or two, Donna isn’t saying to him everything that she’s thinking or what’s on her mind.
He begins to do things to test her like missing a spot while shaving, leaving the knot in his tie slightly askew, or even letting a lone hair stick up like he’s suddenly inherited a cowlick. Although her gaze seems to linger on these few spots for just a second, she never says anything. It leaves him unsettled because that isn’t the Donna he knows. The Donna he knows gets off on fixing things, on making everything good and right, by making him not just presentable but unforgettable.
The last thing he needs to be doing is thinking about Donna getting off or her overall satisfaction, her pleasure in the course or discourse of her life. There are many other things he should be thinking about because, as she once said, how she sleeps is none of his concern. Even though he thought about it before that doesn’t give him any right to think about it now. In fact, he shouldn’t even be beginning to entertain the thought anymore.
Yet, despite the fact that Scottie has one leg draped over his lap and her front angled against his arm as they sit on the couch in his (their?) condo, all he can think about is the tears that graced Donna’s cheeks just a few days ago. His brain, his evil evil brain, that has taken him in the direction of playboy for most of his adult years, does as it does best, and convinces him that he should have wiped her tears away.
He supposes that in an alternate reality, he had wiped her tears away. His thumbs had brushed over her cheekbones as he whispered to her words of consolation, pleading with her not to cry, and when she had smiled ever so softly, cheeks reddened from tears or embarrassment he’s not sure, he couldn’t help himself and he kissed her. Harvey wonders if in the alternate reality, kissing her would be something that he was allowed to do. Or maybe rewarded with? He thinks in that alternate reality he would have kissed her hand, until her lips were bruised and his mouth was wet, and he would have proceeded to pull her to him until the Donna he would know in that alternate reality would grab hold of him and assert her quiet control. She would lead him into his bedroom like she’s been thousands of times and plans to be there thousands more and she would make love to him. She would whisper that she loved him over and over as she writhed beneath him, fingernails digging into his skin with her engagement ring burning his flesh in the best way and hair splaying beneath her head.
That’s the alternate reality away from this one. The one away from Scottie pressed against him, flipping through a magazine about weddings as ESPN becomes a blur before his very eyes and this reality becomes one that makes him sick to his stomach as he aches to read that letter that sits in his briefcase just twelve fucking feet away. The alternate reality though is just a fictional lie that he’s made up in his head. He thinks that vomit crawls up the back of his throat before sliding back down to his stomach - physically sick from the space between him and his redheaded secretary.
“I think I’m going to bed,” he says, barely above a whisper as he points the remote at the television and clicks it off.
“Already?” Scottie asks, pouts, and adds, “But it’s so early.”
“I’m not feeling too well,” Harvey replies, “probably bad Chinese or something.”
Boldface lie. He hasn’t had Chinese in weeks.
“Okay,” she says with a nod. Her eyes light up though and she smiles. “We can talk about all of my wedding ideas tomorrow.”
Oh joy, he thinks. “Over breakfast or lunch?”
“Dinner,” she answers. He nods his acknowledgement but doesn’t muster a response. Either she doesn’t notice or she isn’t bothered by it because she goes back to flipping through the pages of her bridal magazine.
On his way back to the bedroom, his stomach starts doing flips again. He isn’t sure when he started having such a weak stomach, but the situation has managed to stress him out so much that he can’t even sit in the room with his fiancée without feeling sick to his stomach. The record, the letter and the not quite known contents inside of it, is pressing heavily on his shoulders.
He can hardly think straight and it’s distracting him at work, not to mention it makes being at home nearly unbearable. He doesn’t really want to retort into a situation in which he doesn’t feel like he can even be in the presence of his betrothed, but there’s just something deep in his gut that isn’t settling right. He doesn’t even know what to attribute that to at this point. He’s sure there are many different things which he could.
However, as he crosses the threshold to the bedroom, his stomach tightens in knots and he can feel vomit creep up his esophagus. The urge to throw up clouds his senses and he moves much faster into the bathroom. He barely makes it to the toilet on time to empty the contents of his stomach into the bowl.
All he can think about is what’s inside that letter.
“Harvey is the dumbest man I have ever met in my entire life,” Donna slurs. Rachel notes then that Donna has been rambling about Harvey for approximately 2 hours and 27 minutes. It is literally the last thing she needed considering she has an exam bright and early in the morning. “He can’t even make his own phone calls. I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t even know Scottie’s phone number.”
“I don’t know Mike’s phone number,” Rachel points out flippantly. She does, however, remember Logan Sanders’ phone number like she knows the back of her hand. She can relate to Donna in a sense, but Rachel was at least in love with the guy. Rachel shrugs and says, “Maybe you should tell him how you feel.”
Donna laughs, loudly. It rings something terrible in Rachel’s ears and Rachel can’t exactly pinpoint exactly what the laughter is even for. She gulps then as Donna looks at her with a narrowed gaze.
“How I feel is none of his concern,” Donna equivocates, “And besides, I do not have feelings for Harvey Specter. That would make me the dumbest woman on earth to have feelings for a perpetual bachelor who is currently fooling himself that a marriage to his collegiate love interest slash inevitable enemy could ever last. Did you know she cheated on her fiancé with him?”
“I,” Rachel trails off. The moral high ground is a touchy subject for her at best.
“He’s only with her right now because I talked him into it,” Donna says.
Rachel furrows her eyebrows in confusion then. “Why would you do such a thing?”
“Because he’s,” Donna pauses to sigh, heavily, “he’s Harvey and he’s a good man. He deserves to be loved, Rachel. He deserves way more than he gives himself credit for, but of all things he deserves to be loved. Besides, I don’t know how I’m ever supposed to feel okay spending my life with someone, baiting him with the knowledge that at any moment I could choose someone else, unless he has someone.”
“So, you want him to get married?” Rachel really isn’t following.
Donna snaps her fingers angrily then like she’s telling Rachel to catch up. “I want him to be happy and I can’t tell him how to do that. Harvey is completely capable of talking himself out of the things that would make him happy. He only keeps me around because I have his best interest at heart.”
“Do you love him, Donna?” Rachel asks.
Rachel watches a switch flip for Donna, one where she goes from riled up drunk to so far gone that there’s no way for Donna to recover. Rachel silently thanks whatever god’s are above that she has Mike at home and no one is asking her any longer if she loves him like it’s some kind of secret. Rachel thinks of how happy she is that she gets to kiss the man she loves rather than watch and wait for him. She’s probably making a lot of assumptions about Harvey and Donna’s relationship, but that’s primarily because her friend won’t tell her a goddamn thing even after all these years.
Donna swirls the glass in her hand, eyes intently watching the liquid make its way around the rim like she’s looking at the bottom of it for all the answers. Donna sighs heavily before taking a long draw of the rest of the liquid in her glass. Rachel always thought Donna only drank scotch because of Harvey, but she’s learning that it probably just says a lot about how entwined the two of them are.
Donna sets her glass down onto the table, slowly lifting a hazy gaze to Rachel from the other side of the platform. “It’s complicated.”
“Are you in love with him, Donna?” Rachel tries again.
A sober Donna would laugh and tell Rachel that there isn’t even the smallest chance that she is in love with Harvey Specter. A sober Donna would be tight lipped on the matter regarding his upcoming nuptials. A sober Donna disappeared nearly two hours ago.
“I don’t know,” Donna says, honestly, “I think part of me always believed that while I’m not in love with him he would still pick me. He would come after me and would fight to be with me, fight for the chance to make things between us…right. Right isn’t the word - more? I always thought he’d want more, that I wouldn’t just be his secretary, that I would be his everything.”
“Donna, you are his everything,” Rachel argues.
“I’m not, Rachel,” Donna says, voice a little louder and clearer as she disagrees, “He chose to work with me, not have a relationship with me.”
“Wait,” Rachel opens gawks, screeches, “What?!” Rachel’s fairly certain patrons of The Dove Parlour are staring at them now. Rachel tilts her chin downward, crouching her shoulders and, attempting to shield her face, says, “What does that even mean?”
“It means we had sex, one time, ten years ago and we don’t talk about it. I told him I don’t sleep with men I work with and-“
“Stephen,” Rachel interjects boldly, shoulders straightening again.
Donna pauses and sighs, a slight eye roll making an appearance. She grits her teeth and says a bit more forceful, “I don’t sleep with men I work with and he decided that he didn’t want to find out what kind of lawyer he’d be like without me. He chose the job.”
Rachel gapes for a moment, measuring everything that Donna’s saying, and she isn’t exactly sure what to comment on first. “Wait a second,” Rachel suddenly erupts, “You told me you never slept together because you can’t go back.”
“I lied,” Donna says with a shrug.
Rachel narrows her gaze, silently telling Donna that was rude. “You lied when you said you hadn’t slept together. How do I know you’re not lying about being in love with Harvey?”
“Rachel,” Donna squeaks. Rachel hides a smirk against her wine glass and she realizes then that this is only her second glass, and it’s over half full. Donna reaches to the center of the table for a breadstick and clamps her teeth around it with a big bite. “I don’t know how to answer that question.”
“Honestly,” Rachel tries.
“Honestly,” Donna repeats, a bit quieter than Rachel, more vulnerable, “I could love him, if I thought it was okay to, but he’s getting married and it’s too late.” Before Rachel can even swallow what Donna’s said, Donna drops her head into her hands. “What am I gonna do?” Donna mutters to no one in particular.
“I think you’re drunk,” Rachel says suddenly. “Can I hail you a cab?”
“No thank you, Rach,” Donna says, a wave of the hand, “I need to walk it off.”
“Let me walk you home then,” Rachel concedes.
“I could really use another drink,” Donna admits.
Rachel’s shoulders drop just a little, “You’re going to barf.”
“That’s the idea,” Donna says.
Rachel nods and digs through her purse, “let me at least call Mike to walk us.”
“I don’t need a chauffeur,” Donna says.
“Of course not, honey,” Rachel says carefully, reaching out to touch Donna’s hand.