relativity (3/10)
Title: Relativity
Author: snowflake912
Pairing: Harvey/Donna
Rating: T
Part: 3/10
Words: 3,321
Summary: Time, she thinks, needs to be redefined. She rearranges the pieces of their history, and at least ten combinations make sense. This one doesn't.
Disclaimer: I still don't own them or anything really.
Note: I'm sorry this took longer than usual. I was away for spring break last week, and it feels like the excessive sunshine has dulled my wits because I wrestled this chapter for days before feeling comfortable enough to post it. It's not exactly where I want it to be, but it has to do for now. Thanks for reading!
3. Sitting on a Fence
“It’s all you want, all you want, and you run
But it won’t change a thing.”
(Drive - Dawn Landes)
July 2007 -
The ambivalence rattles him.
He oscillates between despair, relief and wonder. He imagines a three-pronged spectrum and dallies between extremes as his memory tosses out snippets of images and conversations.
“We therefore commit Gordon Specter’s body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life.”
He can almost feel the angry July sun burning at the edges of his vision - red and hot and merciless - much like it spills now into Donna’s bedroom. Her windows are bereft of blinds. The smell of freshly dug soil assails him, and the quiet hum of suburbia bows respectfully to the clatter of packed dirt against the gleaming coffin. There’s such finality to everything - life in a box, tidied and ready for desiccation. Death and life, he thinks, staring at Donna’s hand rising and falling to the pattern of his breathing. Her fingertips lay against the skin just above his heart as if poised to strike the keys on a piano.
“I’m sorry, Harvey.”
She sneaks up on him after the service, after everyone is gone and his guard is down. Typical of her, he thinks, to deal in sucker punches. “I don’t want you here,” he says frostily. Stubborn conviction keeps his back turned to her, but it’s a childish feat and she’s much too polished to succumb to it.
She steps out from around him in swathes of expensive black lace and silk. At sixty-three, Melinda Donovan nee Watts is so majestically beautiful that his father’s ghost aches from the afterworld. “I want to be here for you, darling. I know how much you loved him.” Reaching for his hand, she lifts it and encloses it in her cool palms. The platinum ring around her fourth finger bites into his skin. Her smile is sadness and muted dimples.
He calls her opportunistic in his head but returns her smile with one that’s just as voracious. “Already moving in on his share of the Specter boys?” he chides her. “The body is still warm, Mother.”
She stiffens and releases his hand, her smile frozen like she’s had an unpleasant encounter with his demons. “How can you be so cruel?” The rhetoric is a lovely prelude to the pretty tears she delicately dabs away. He narrows his gaze on her and wonders how she could possibly be surprised. Does she not see the broken mirror he does when he looks at her? “His death is a tragedy,” she says. “You must be devastated. Let me be your mother, Harvey.”
“I’m glad he’s gone,” he corrects her. “It ends his perpetual suffering over your miserable existence.” His first acknowledgement of the relief comes hand in hand with the guilt.
She looks like he just slapped her. It’s just as well; he feels like he’s been kicked in the teeth every time he sees her. “That’s a terrible thing to say.”
“It’s time for you to leave.”
Their gazes clash, and they wage a battle in what he dubs their very own Cold War. A long minute ticks by until she finally nods in defeat, the tilt of her chin proud and unrelenting.
She dissolves into the shadows of the church like an illusion.
He lingers on relief. There’s nothing quite like the wretchedness of a life hinged on Melinda Watts. He tells himself his father is better off, and part of him believes it. The guilt still gnaws at him, a low rumbling discomfort in the pit of his belly. He dissociates it from Melinda and the mislaid sadness he finds in her eyes. Villains don’t partake in sadness.
Christmas Eve finds them sipping forty-year old Macallan by a roaring fire.
Harvey talks about the women in his life because his father asks. He mentions names and beautiful faces and makes it a celebration of his eternal bachelorhood.
Less amused, his father musingly savors the scotch. “Specter men are monogamous, son. You’ll see.” And it’s just like his father to say something like that.
His chest swells with bitterness, and he tastes anger on his tongue like something unfamiliar and acrid. Lifting his gaze from the fire to the other man’s troubled features, he swallows and finds his throat tight. “I’m more like her than you know.”
They don’t have to say who she is before Gordon Specter turns on him fiercely, black eyes more alive than Harvey has ever seen them. “You’re nothing like her or me. Nothing,” he emphasizes. “You are better.”
When grief kicks in, he feels a heavy weight on his chest, and he almost wants to push Donna’s unassuming hand away. He can’t fathom what that would mean, so he stares at it instead. Her skin is pale against his, golden where the sunlight catches her forearm from elbow to knuckles. She wears dark nail polish that must be a shade of burgundy but he calls it black because the world is easier in shades of gray. He wishes she wasn’t touching him and envies her the temporary sanctuary of sleep.
“Okay, kids, I’ll leave you to your boy talk. There’s a slice of pecan pie with my name on it at Bubby’s,” Donna announces and pushes her chair back. The Hudson Clearwater is abuzz with post-lunch chatter, and when she comes to her feet several gazes are drawn in appreciation. Harvey fixates on her nude, ridiculously high heels and their bright red soles.
“Pecan pie! A woman after my own heart,” Gordon Specter laughs and holds out both hands for her. She clasps his open palms and leans down to plant a firm kiss on his ruddy cheek.
“I’ll see you soon, Gordon,” she promises warmly, and he swears his father blushes. Giving him an affectionate smile, she straightens, turns to Harvey and waves at him before weaving her way to the exit.
She leaves behind a chasm of energy that’s hard to fill, so they entertain a comfortable silence.
“You care about Donna,” his father notes, choosing four of the most troubling words to banish the quiet.
“Of course I do,” he replies easily, unruffled as he dodges Gordon’s stare. “She’s my best friend, and for all intents and purposes my much better half.”
His father hums in approval. “She’s also stunning.”
“Sporting a little crush on Donna, Dad?” he teases and tries to quiet the erratic thud of his heart. It makes no sense that this should unsettle him, so he chalks it up to some variation of white coat syndrome.
Gordon scoffs and feels for his mustache, an accessory Harvey had coerced him to sack a decade ago in favor of a more modern clean-shaven look. He still goes in search of it whenever he’s feeling pensive or outwitted. “Maybe if I were some twenty years younger and ten times better looking.” He leans back into his chair, and the sunshine sinks into his wrinkles. “Like if I were you for example.”
Shaking his head, he makes a show of adding sugar to his coffee. He likes his coffee bitter, but keeping his hands busy takes precedence. “I don’t cook in my own kitchen. Things get messy. You need to clean up and do the dishes,” he reasons.
His father shrugs and looks at him meaningfully. He doesn’t push or pull. He doesn’t make grand statements or issue ultimatums. He doesn’t call him an idiot, but Harvey can tell he’s thinking it. A self-effacing man, Gordon merely smiles. “I’ve always loved home-cooked meals,” he says.
He takes her in, and for a few precious moments the universe contracts to the here and now. She looks like Venus, splendidly naked, draped in golden sunlight, bright white sheets tangled between her long legs, hair ablaze like a wanton flame. She is stunning, and Harvey thinks he’s known that for years. Every aberration on her flawless skin is his doing. There are two hickeys on her shoulder and stubble burns on her breasts. He feels like a rowdy teenager; it’s nothing like him to get carried away and leave visible marks on a lover. By the time his gaze latches onto her pout, he’s hard, frustrated that she’s asleep and relieved for reasons he doesn’t quite understand. He flattens her palm against his chest. She stirs, makes a sleepy disgruntled sound and pulls her hand from under his to tuck it beneath her cheek. Her breathing evens out.
He suddenly feels incredibly alone.
“If you’re seeing your father, give him these.” She drops a white envelope on his desk. “He’s mentioned it a few times. Maybe he’ll take his lady friend,” she muses and her eyes twinkle with hopeful delight.
He slides the envelope open and pulls out two tickets to a Chris Potter concert. “His lady friend?” he echoes.
She stops at the door and turns to face him, head cocked to the right. Red cascades over the shoulder of her black dress, and her smile is full of wry mirth. He thinks of temptation and the forbidden. “Daddy keeping secrets from his little boy?” she teases.
Harvey raises both eyebrows and sits back in his chair. “He has a lady friend?” he repeats.
She shrugs, and he likes the way her smile makes way for a pensive frown like she can tell how much this means to him. The dismantling of Mellie Watts. “She’s just a friend,” she tells him, treading cautiously on his rampant hopes.
It takes two beats of silence for him to reclaim his game face. “How do you know this?”
“I’m easy to confide in.”
“And I’m not?” he scoffs indignantly.
She rolls her eyes good-naturedly and starts to leave.
“Donna,” he calls out, stilling her. “Thank you.”
*
He looks odd and out of place in her living room. She thinks if she blinks hard enough, he’ll be gone, but nothing in this new surreal world is as expected. Several blinks later, he stands tall, with his back turned to her, squinting at Manhattan through her windows. He wears his grief and last night’s clothes like a burden. His hair is wet like he just came out of her shower, and he looks nothing like himself.
Everything’s changed.
Barefoot and clad in an oversized nightshirt, she feels exposed and vulnerable. Every instinct she possesses spurs her back into her bedroom where she could hide out until he leaves and the world resumes spinning. It’s a terrible plan, and he turns around on cue as if he can sense her fight or flight response kick in.
“Donna,” he says slowly - heavily. He looks fragile, breakable, and she almost can’t breathe.
She can’t breathe and it makes her feel claustrophobic in her own home. “It’s okay,” she says calmly, her voice measured. The underlying tremor is barely noticeable. She crosses her arms over her chest, and his eyes follow the movement intently. “It’s okay. When grieving over a great loss, people turn to sex because it’s the most primal way to feel alive. It’s a reaction to grief,” she explains. The logic is impeccable. Her voice doesn’t tremble. She doesn’t care for the whisker burns on her breasts or the dull ache between her thighs. She simply doesn’t care for any of this.
“Donna,” he repeats, and the steadiness of his voice makes her sound manic. She instantly starts to resent him. “I,” he clears his throat and rubs the back of his neck. “We didn’t use condoms.”
She blinks. Once. Twice. He blurs into a silhouette, tawny in the sunlight, but he doesn’t disappear. This is much too real for her liking. She heaves in a long, soothing breath and brings him back into focus. He looks worried, worn-down - weary. Condoms, she repeats to herself, because last night she and Harvey - Harvey - engaged in what seemed like multiple attempts to procreate. “I’m not on the pill,” she whispers more to herself than to him and starts calculating furiously. She’s so panicked she can’t remember any monumental dates. Fuck. Well, that’s exactly what got you here, Donna. She stubbornly fights the tears burning at the backs of her eyes. The giant knot pushing its way down her throat does little to help.
He closes his eyes. It’s his only visible reaction to this piece of news. Harvey Specter - New York’s best closer has an iron grip on his emotions. She wants to grab his shoulders and shake him hard. “It’s okay,” he breathes finally, and it sounds like they’ve come full circle. “Chances are nothing’s going to happen. Let’s not worry before we have to.” She’s frozen as he walks up to her, slides an arm around her shoulders and presses a kiss to her forehead.
Before her traitorous body succumbs to his warmth, she breaks free of his embrace, palms pushing into his chest. He gives her a puzzled look, and she swallows thickly. “Your father is dead,” she states, and his eyes flash with barely contained sorrow. “Your father died, and we…” She gestures wildly with her hand. “We made a mistake.”
His sad gaze hardens imperceptibly, and he shakes his head in something that looks like vehement denial. “Don’t make it about that,” he says.
The twist of her lips is more sarcastic than she feels. “Then what is it about?” She tries not to make it sound like a challenge, but they both recognize it for what it is.
He stares at her, dark eyes speaking a language she does not understand. He looks like he’s about to say something; he opens his mouth but no words come out. She thinks that hurts more than the silence.
When she laughs, he is just as surprised as she is by the misplaced sound. It’s far from amused, and his brow furrows with concern. “I’m really sorry about your father, Harvey. He was a wonderful man, but I need to leave. I can’t deal with this,” she mutters and starts backing away.
His reflexes are quicker than her flight. He grabs her arm, holding her in place. She doesn’t know it now, but it perfectly foreshadows the next year of their lives. They dance in ever-growing circles, taking one step forward, and falling ten steps back. “Where are you going?” he asks incredulously. “You live here.”
“Out.” Her toneless response infuriates him. She can see it in the way he clenches his jaw like he’s biting back curses. There’s too much anger in their hurried exchange, and she wonders where all the agony comes from.
“You’re running away from this,” he accuses her.
Donna smiles with a combination of self-derision and mockery, and she deludes herself into believing she’s in control. “From what?” she asks curiously.
The stony expression on his face doesn’t change, but the vein in his temple throbs furiously.
Control starts to elude them both. Part of her relishes in pushing his buttons because most days it feels like he’s walking all over hers. Another far more empathetic part berates her for piling on the misery. When she speaks next, she summons her rational, calm voice and gently slips her arm out of his grasp. Damage control. “Let’s not pretend this is something it’s not. I’m going to leave, and when I come back you won’t be here. On Monday, we’ll both go to work and everything will be back to normal.”
It’s the smartest thing she’s heard from either of them since last night, but he looks at her like she’s being hysterical. She supposes she is. Her emotions are running rampant, fluctuating dramatically between the urge to curl into him and make him stay and the more pressing need to physically push him out of her apartment and shut the door.
He releases a long-suffering sigh and paces to the window and back. When he looks at her, his eyes glitter with resolve. “Last night, you said…”
“It didn’t mean anything,” she cuts him off. Her stomach clenches painfully as the words replay in her mind like a skipping record. She thinks hearing them from him would undo her completely. “It was great sex, that’s all.” She ties it up neatly and hopes he won’t undo her tidy ribbons.
Dark eyebrows climb his brow in disbelief, and he pauses long enough to revise his tactics. Then he steps closer and reaches out to tenderly cradle her elbows in his palms. He smells like a combination of Harvey and her shampoo. “Donna, don’t do this,” he pleads quietly, and she supposes it’s as much of a confession as she’s going to get this time around.
It’s not nearly enough. “Do what?” she presses on doggedly.
“I want to talk about this,” he says and brings a hand to her cheek. His thumb lightly strokes the line of her jaw. The intimacy of the act almost shatters her.
She feels another lump cluster in her throat and steps away from his touch. “I have no time for this,” she says impatiently; it also means she won’t make time for this. “I’m going to buy the morning after pill. Then I’m going to take it and forget this ever happened,” she lays out her plan over a breathless ramble, grateful that her voice doesn’t tear on the jagged edges of her words.
Harvey takes the verbal slaps with a stride. She wishes he would just desert her and let her deal with the inevitable pain. “I’m coming with you,” he says because it’s his prerogative to be contrarian in this convoluted universe.
“No you’re not. I need to be alone,” she asserts.
“Then I’ll wait for you here.”
“Don’t wait. I won’t come back.”
“Stop pushing me away,” he snaps at her, and all the frustration he’s been reining in pours into his posture. It’s raw and unsettling, and it almost makes her want to suffer the blows of this fallout and let him escape unscathed.
Instead, she narrows her gaze on him. “Stop acting like you don’t want me to,” she retorts, the syllables short and drawn out like a despondent melody.
He grinds his teeth so hard his jaw starts to twitch. “Stop acting like you know everything,” he bites out.
She laughs, and she doesn’t know how it happens but she tastes her own tears. They sting like regret on her tongue. “I don’t know everything, Harvey, but I do know you.”
That stumps him. He glares at her, but his gaze keeps softening until it looks like he’s fighting the impulse to console her. He doesn’t do well with crying, so she gnaws the inside of her cheek, willing the tears away. He walks across the rug, sticking out like a sore thumb, and sits in the middle of her off-white couch. The space shrinks around him until he’s the only thing she recognizes in her own living room. “I’ll wait,” he says in a tone that brooks no argument.
She shrugs and walks into her bedroom, slamming the door with finality.
She washes up and changes into a seashell summer dress that hangs off her unmarred shoulder. It’s a hurried and unembellished effort, but when she steps out his gaze devours her like she just walked off a catwalk. Her face is scrubbed clean of their conversation, and he’s still perched on her couch. Wordlessly, he watches her check the contents of her purse and drape it over her shoulder. She doesn’t say anything to his brooding silence as she leaves her apartment and gently shuts the door.
When she returns, it’s almost midnight. Her apartment is empty and bears no traces of his presence.
She curls into his spot on her couch and cries in gut-wrenching sobs that sound incredibly lonely.
She promises herself it’s the only time she’ll ever cry over Harvey Specter.
Author: snowflake912
Pairing: Harvey/Donna
Rating: T
Part: 3/10
Words: 3,321
Summary: Time, she thinks, needs to be redefined. She rearranges the pieces of their history, and at least ten combinations make sense. This one doesn't.
Disclaimer: I still don't own them or anything really.
Note: I'm sorry this took longer than usual. I was away for spring break last week, and it feels like the excessive sunshine has dulled my wits because I wrestled this chapter for days before feeling comfortable enough to post it. It's not exactly where I want it to be, but it has to do for now. Thanks for reading!
3. Sitting on a Fence
“It’s all you want, all you want, and you run
But it won’t change a thing.”
(Drive - Dawn Landes)
July 2007 -
The ambivalence rattles him.
He oscillates between despair, relief and wonder. He imagines a three-pronged spectrum and dallies between extremes as his memory tosses out snippets of images and conversations.
“We therefore commit Gordon Specter’s body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life.”
He can almost feel the angry July sun burning at the edges of his vision - red and hot and merciless - much like it spills now into Donna’s bedroom. Her windows are bereft of blinds. The smell of freshly dug soil assails him, and the quiet hum of suburbia bows respectfully to the clatter of packed dirt against the gleaming coffin. There’s such finality to everything - life in a box, tidied and ready for desiccation. Death and life, he thinks, staring at Donna’s hand rising and falling to the pattern of his breathing. Her fingertips lay against the skin just above his heart as if poised to strike the keys on a piano.
“I’m sorry, Harvey.”
She sneaks up on him after the service, after everyone is gone and his guard is down. Typical of her, he thinks, to deal in sucker punches. “I don’t want you here,” he says frostily. Stubborn conviction keeps his back turned to her, but it’s a childish feat and she’s much too polished to succumb to it.
She steps out from around him in swathes of expensive black lace and silk. At sixty-three, Melinda Donovan nee Watts is so majestically beautiful that his father’s ghost aches from the afterworld. “I want to be here for you, darling. I know how much you loved him.” Reaching for his hand, she lifts it and encloses it in her cool palms. The platinum ring around her fourth finger bites into his skin. Her smile is sadness and muted dimples.
He calls her opportunistic in his head but returns her smile with one that’s just as voracious. “Already moving in on his share of the Specter boys?” he chides her. “The body is still warm, Mother.”
She stiffens and releases his hand, her smile frozen like she’s had an unpleasant encounter with his demons. “How can you be so cruel?” The rhetoric is a lovely prelude to the pretty tears she delicately dabs away. He narrows his gaze on her and wonders how she could possibly be surprised. Does she not see the broken mirror he does when he looks at her? “His death is a tragedy,” she says. “You must be devastated. Let me be your mother, Harvey.”
“I’m glad he’s gone,” he corrects her. “It ends his perpetual suffering over your miserable existence.” His first acknowledgement of the relief comes hand in hand with the guilt.
She looks like he just slapped her. It’s just as well; he feels like he’s been kicked in the teeth every time he sees her. “That’s a terrible thing to say.”
“It’s time for you to leave.”
Their gazes clash, and they wage a battle in what he dubs their very own Cold War. A long minute ticks by until she finally nods in defeat, the tilt of her chin proud and unrelenting.
She dissolves into the shadows of the church like an illusion.
He lingers on relief. There’s nothing quite like the wretchedness of a life hinged on Melinda Watts. He tells himself his father is better off, and part of him believes it. The guilt still gnaws at him, a low rumbling discomfort in the pit of his belly. He dissociates it from Melinda and the mislaid sadness he finds in her eyes. Villains don’t partake in sadness.
Christmas Eve finds them sipping forty-year old Macallan by a roaring fire.
Harvey talks about the women in his life because his father asks. He mentions names and beautiful faces and makes it a celebration of his eternal bachelorhood.
Less amused, his father musingly savors the scotch. “Specter men are monogamous, son. You’ll see.” And it’s just like his father to say something like that.
His chest swells with bitterness, and he tastes anger on his tongue like something unfamiliar and acrid. Lifting his gaze from the fire to the other man’s troubled features, he swallows and finds his throat tight. “I’m more like her than you know.”
They don’t have to say who she is before Gordon Specter turns on him fiercely, black eyes more alive than Harvey has ever seen them. “You’re nothing like her or me. Nothing,” he emphasizes. “You are better.”
When grief kicks in, he feels a heavy weight on his chest, and he almost wants to push Donna’s unassuming hand away. He can’t fathom what that would mean, so he stares at it instead. Her skin is pale against his, golden where the sunlight catches her forearm from elbow to knuckles. She wears dark nail polish that must be a shade of burgundy but he calls it black because the world is easier in shades of gray. He wishes she wasn’t touching him and envies her the temporary sanctuary of sleep.
“Okay, kids, I’ll leave you to your boy talk. There’s a slice of pecan pie with my name on it at Bubby’s,” Donna announces and pushes her chair back. The Hudson Clearwater is abuzz with post-lunch chatter, and when she comes to her feet several gazes are drawn in appreciation. Harvey fixates on her nude, ridiculously high heels and their bright red soles.
“Pecan pie! A woman after my own heart,” Gordon Specter laughs and holds out both hands for her. She clasps his open palms and leans down to plant a firm kiss on his ruddy cheek.
“I’ll see you soon, Gordon,” she promises warmly, and he swears his father blushes. Giving him an affectionate smile, she straightens, turns to Harvey and waves at him before weaving her way to the exit.
She leaves behind a chasm of energy that’s hard to fill, so they entertain a comfortable silence.
“You care about Donna,” his father notes, choosing four of the most troubling words to banish the quiet.
“Of course I do,” he replies easily, unruffled as he dodges Gordon’s stare. “She’s my best friend, and for all intents and purposes my much better half.”
His father hums in approval. “She’s also stunning.”
“Sporting a little crush on Donna, Dad?” he teases and tries to quiet the erratic thud of his heart. It makes no sense that this should unsettle him, so he chalks it up to some variation of white coat syndrome.
Gordon scoffs and feels for his mustache, an accessory Harvey had coerced him to sack a decade ago in favor of a more modern clean-shaven look. He still goes in search of it whenever he’s feeling pensive or outwitted. “Maybe if I were some twenty years younger and ten times better looking.” He leans back into his chair, and the sunshine sinks into his wrinkles. “Like if I were you for example.”
Shaking his head, he makes a show of adding sugar to his coffee. He likes his coffee bitter, but keeping his hands busy takes precedence. “I don’t cook in my own kitchen. Things get messy. You need to clean up and do the dishes,” he reasons.
His father shrugs and looks at him meaningfully. He doesn’t push or pull. He doesn’t make grand statements or issue ultimatums. He doesn’t call him an idiot, but Harvey can tell he’s thinking it. A self-effacing man, Gordon merely smiles. “I’ve always loved home-cooked meals,” he says.
He takes her in, and for a few precious moments the universe contracts to the here and now. She looks like Venus, splendidly naked, draped in golden sunlight, bright white sheets tangled between her long legs, hair ablaze like a wanton flame. She is stunning, and Harvey thinks he’s known that for years. Every aberration on her flawless skin is his doing. There are two hickeys on her shoulder and stubble burns on her breasts. He feels like a rowdy teenager; it’s nothing like him to get carried away and leave visible marks on a lover. By the time his gaze latches onto her pout, he’s hard, frustrated that she’s asleep and relieved for reasons he doesn’t quite understand. He flattens her palm against his chest. She stirs, makes a sleepy disgruntled sound and pulls her hand from under his to tuck it beneath her cheek. Her breathing evens out.
He suddenly feels incredibly alone.
“If you’re seeing your father, give him these.” She drops a white envelope on his desk. “He’s mentioned it a few times. Maybe he’ll take his lady friend,” she muses and her eyes twinkle with hopeful delight.
He slides the envelope open and pulls out two tickets to a Chris Potter concert. “His lady friend?” he echoes.
She stops at the door and turns to face him, head cocked to the right. Red cascades over the shoulder of her black dress, and her smile is full of wry mirth. He thinks of temptation and the forbidden. “Daddy keeping secrets from his little boy?” she teases.
Harvey raises both eyebrows and sits back in his chair. “He has a lady friend?” he repeats.
She shrugs, and he likes the way her smile makes way for a pensive frown like she can tell how much this means to him. The dismantling of Mellie Watts. “She’s just a friend,” she tells him, treading cautiously on his rampant hopes.
It takes two beats of silence for him to reclaim his game face. “How do you know this?”
“I’m easy to confide in.”
“And I’m not?” he scoffs indignantly.
She rolls her eyes good-naturedly and starts to leave.
“Donna,” he calls out, stilling her. “Thank you.”
*
He looks odd and out of place in her living room. She thinks if she blinks hard enough, he’ll be gone, but nothing in this new surreal world is as expected. Several blinks later, he stands tall, with his back turned to her, squinting at Manhattan through her windows. He wears his grief and last night’s clothes like a burden. His hair is wet like he just came out of her shower, and he looks nothing like himself.
Everything’s changed.
Barefoot and clad in an oversized nightshirt, she feels exposed and vulnerable. Every instinct she possesses spurs her back into her bedroom where she could hide out until he leaves and the world resumes spinning. It’s a terrible plan, and he turns around on cue as if he can sense her fight or flight response kick in.
“Donna,” he says slowly - heavily. He looks fragile, breakable, and she almost can’t breathe.
She can’t breathe and it makes her feel claustrophobic in her own home. “It’s okay,” she says calmly, her voice measured. The underlying tremor is barely noticeable. She crosses her arms over her chest, and his eyes follow the movement intently. “It’s okay. When grieving over a great loss, people turn to sex because it’s the most primal way to feel alive. It’s a reaction to grief,” she explains. The logic is impeccable. Her voice doesn’t tremble. She doesn’t care for the whisker burns on her breasts or the dull ache between her thighs. She simply doesn’t care for any of this.
“Donna,” he repeats, and the steadiness of his voice makes her sound manic. She instantly starts to resent him. “I,” he clears his throat and rubs the back of his neck. “We didn’t use condoms.”
She blinks. Once. Twice. He blurs into a silhouette, tawny in the sunlight, but he doesn’t disappear. This is much too real for her liking. She heaves in a long, soothing breath and brings him back into focus. He looks worried, worn-down - weary. Condoms, she repeats to herself, because last night she and Harvey - Harvey - engaged in what seemed like multiple attempts to procreate. “I’m not on the pill,” she whispers more to herself than to him and starts calculating furiously. She’s so panicked she can’t remember any monumental dates. Fuck. Well, that’s exactly what got you here, Donna. She stubbornly fights the tears burning at the backs of her eyes. The giant knot pushing its way down her throat does little to help.
He closes his eyes. It’s his only visible reaction to this piece of news. Harvey Specter - New York’s best closer has an iron grip on his emotions. She wants to grab his shoulders and shake him hard. “It’s okay,” he breathes finally, and it sounds like they’ve come full circle. “Chances are nothing’s going to happen. Let’s not worry before we have to.” She’s frozen as he walks up to her, slides an arm around her shoulders and presses a kiss to her forehead.
Before her traitorous body succumbs to his warmth, she breaks free of his embrace, palms pushing into his chest. He gives her a puzzled look, and she swallows thickly. “Your father is dead,” she states, and his eyes flash with barely contained sorrow. “Your father died, and we…” She gestures wildly with her hand. “We made a mistake.”
His sad gaze hardens imperceptibly, and he shakes his head in something that looks like vehement denial. “Don’t make it about that,” he says.
The twist of her lips is more sarcastic than she feels. “Then what is it about?” She tries not to make it sound like a challenge, but they both recognize it for what it is.
He stares at her, dark eyes speaking a language she does not understand. He looks like he’s about to say something; he opens his mouth but no words come out. She thinks that hurts more than the silence.
When she laughs, he is just as surprised as she is by the misplaced sound. It’s far from amused, and his brow furrows with concern. “I’m really sorry about your father, Harvey. He was a wonderful man, but I need to leave. I can’t deal with this,” she mutters and starts backing away.
His reflexes are quicker than her flight. He grabs her arm, holding her in place. She doesn’t know it now, but it perfectly foreshadows the next year of their lives. They dance in ever-growing circles, taking one step forward, and falling ten steps back. “Where are you going?” he asks incredulously. “You live here.”
“Out.” Her toneless response infuriates him. She can see it in the way he clenches his jaw like he’s biting back curses. There’s too much anger in their hurried exchange, and she wonders where all the agony comes from.
“You’re running away from this,” he accuses her.
Donna smiles with a combination of self-derision and mockery, and she deludes herself into believing she’s in control. “From what?” she asks curiously.
The stony expression on his face doesn’t change, but the vein in his temple throbs furiously.
Control starts to elude them both. Part of her relishes in pushing his buttons because most days it feels like he’s walking all over hers. Another far more empathetic part berates her for piling on the misery. When she speaks next, she summons her rational, calm voice and gently slips her arm out of his grasp. Damage control. “Let’s not pretend this is something it’s not. I’m going to leave, and when I come back you won’t be here. On Monday, we’ll both go to work and everything will be back to normal.”
It’s the smartest thing she’s heard from either of them since last night, but he looks at her like she’s being hysterical. She supposes she is. Her emotions are running rampant, fluctuating dramatically between the urge to curl into him and make him stay and the more pressing need to physically push him out of her apartment and shut the door.
He releases a long-suffering sigh and paces to the window and back. When he looks at her, his eyes glitter with resolve. “Last night, you said…”
“It didn’t mean anything,” she cuts him off. Her stomach clenches painfully as the words replay in her mind like a skipping record. She thinks hearing them from him would undo her completely. “It was great sex, that’s all.” She ties it up neatly and hopes he won’t undo her tidy ribbons.
Dark eyebrows climb his brow in disbelief, and he pauses long enough to revise his tactics. Then he steps closer and reaches out to tenderly cradle her elbows in his palms. He smells like a combination of Harvey and her shampoo. “Donna, don’t do this,” he pleads quietly, and she supposes it’s as much of a confession as she’s going to get this time around.
It’s not nearly enough. “Do what?” she presses on doggedly.
“I want to talk about this,” he says and brings a hand to her cheek. His thumb lightly strokes the line of her jaw. The intimacy of the act almost shatters her.
She feels another lump cluster in her throat and steps away from his touch. “I have no time for this,” she says impatiently; it also means she won’t make time for this. “I’m going to buy the morning after pill. Then I’m going to take it and forget this ever happened,” she lays out her plan over a breathless ramble, grateful that her voice doesn’t tear on the jagged edges of her words.
Harvey takes the verbal slaps with a stride. She wishes he would just desert her and let her deal with the inevitable pain. “I’m coming with you,” he says because it’s his prerogative to be contrarian in this convoluted universe.
“No you’re not. I need to be alone,” she asserts.
“Then I’ll wait for you here.”
“Don’t wait. I won’t come back.”
“Stop pushing me away,” he snaps at her, and all the frustration he’s been reining in pours into his posture. It’s raw and unsettling, and it almost makes her want to suffer the blows of this fallout and let him escape unscathed.
Instead, she narrows her gaze on him. “Stop acting like you don’t want me to,” she retorts, the syllables short and drawn out like a despondent melody.
He grinds his teeth so hard his jaw starts to twitch. “Stop acting like you know everything,” he bites out.
She laughs, and she doesn’t know how it happens but she tastes her own tears. They sting like regret on her tongue. “I don’t know everything, Harvey, but I do know you.”
That stumps him. He glares at her, but his gaze keeps softening until it looks like he’s fighting the impulse to console her. He doesn’t do well with crying, so she gnaws the inside of her cheek, willing the tears away. He walks across the rug, sticking out like a sore thumb, and sits in the middle of her off-white couch. The space shrinks around him until he’s the only thing she recognizes in her own living room. “I’ll wait,” he says in a tone that brooks no argument.
She shrugs and walks into her bedroom, slamming the door with finality.
She washes up and changes into a seashell summer dress that hangs off her unmarred shoulder. It’s a hurried and unembellished effort, but when she steps out his gaze devours her like she just walked off a catwalk. Her face is scrubbed clean of their conversation, and he’s still perched on her couch. Wordlessly, he watches her check the contents of her purse and drape it over her shoulder. She doesn’t say anything to his brooding silence as she leaves her apartment and gently shuts the door.
When she returns, it’s almost midnight. Her apartment is empty and bears no traces of his presence.
She curls into his spot on her couch and cries in gut-wrenching sobs that sound incredibly lonely.
She promises herself it’s the only time she’ll ever cry over Harvey Specter.