weak wrists
Title: Weak Wrists
Pairing: Harvey/Donna. Suits.
Part: 1/2
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: A slightly different take to everything.
A/N: Told myself I would finish this before the new season began. All mistakes and crazy are my own. Enjoy-
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Weak Wrists
- Beware of Safety
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
The sun hangs high in the sky on a Tuesday in a sea of other normal weekdays. Outside there are rumblings of finished cases and fresh ones being cracked wide open. The phone rings, twice. She glares at Louis as he approached the glass door they are hiding behind and he makes an abrupt right turn. Harvey's hands are laced behind his head, not an apparent care in the world, and she's wondering who is going to speak first. Utter the god-awful words that need be said.
She looks to the records, lost.
She's not really sure how she allowed this to happen, and the niggling feeling in the pit of her stomach that everything is now ablaze is not something that will be easily forgotten.
Donna hears papers begin to shuffle behind her, one heel twisting in as she perches precariously between addressing this and letting it waver out into the canyon of other inappropriate moments they've shared and don't discuss.
But she hates the way he's been looking at her, it makes her heart turn nervously, flipping, sloshing.
Her free hand brushes against the arm of his leather couch, the one she bitched at him for buying because it's heavy as hell and once his decorator fled the scene she was left to reorganize the disaster. Her shoulders ached for days after, but there was that fleeting moment when they slid down the back and fell to the floor in a pile of delirious delight, high off closing a deal and betting against the odds again that almost made it worth it.
He's not going to say it.
She's not sure she's willing to jeopardize the memories. The heat from the coffee in her hand begins to burn, her palm alive with fire, her heart confused, brain screaming, “Don't!”.
“Harvey,” she starts determined. He spins in his chair, facing her when she finally can look back.
There's an orange glow about the building, warmth becoming stifling, she itches to turn on a fan. “We need to talk.”
She hears a groan, and curses the phrasing, no matter how true it may be.
“I know you're mad about A-Rod but I stand behind that decision. Stop listening to Brett, he's leading you astray about Youkilis, ” he tells her for the third time this week.
She gestures to the drink in her hand and he raises his eyebrows. “I usually bring you the coffee,” she states plainly.
“Am I not allowed to do a nice thing for someone else for once?”
He's challenging her. And he doesn't do nice things, not that are noticeable to just anyone passing by. It's a grenade thrown out into overrun field. “We're celebrating...early birthday present,” he dismisses, pointing to the door and the phone that's ringing again. It never stops.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Come on Donna, what do you have going on anyway?”
“I have plans,” she says softly.
She doesn't. He'll make new ones.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
She's embarrassed that she wasn't the first one to know, might never admit it if she's cornered. It shouldn't be terribly surprising.
It is.
He's working late on an awkward Thursday, the city abuzz below with holiday traffic and tourists trying new things. And she waits. Waits until Jessica nods a goodnight in her direction, waits until her mind can finish analyzing every tiny thing that has happened in the last two weeks, three months, a year. God, she can't figure out when it started, really. The progression was so natural, they didn't keep things in check that they should have, and she knows better than this.
She's been warned half a million times by family, by friends, by co-workers, Louis.
“Harvey,” she sputters, stepping into his office and closing the door. There are times when she honestly wishes he had shades, or that he did his work in the library or anywhere else that might be less visible than this trophy case.
“You're here late,” he commends, glancing over the edge of a file.
“You have to stop,” she demands, hands trying to find their place on her hips, but they flop, fall to her sides. She doesn't want to have to spell it out for him. Writing it down may be easier than this conversation, but then there'd be tangible evidence.
“You're going to ruin it,” she warns. If it hasn't already been ruined.
“Donna, I think what he have here is a failure to communicate. You see I don't know what you are so intent on stopping, and I have things to do.”
“Your calendar suggests otherwise,” she tells him and he dips his head to look at the computer, she's not wrong. Never is, unfortunately.
“Out,” he scolds, waiving towards the door.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
It'd almost be easier, turn into that cliché, run wild with the gossip, her hair knotted with guilt, immense pleasure.
Except one tiny thing.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
It's one issue after the other today. Louis has been banned from the fax machine for making it angry, Contracts is pissed off at her for calling in a favor they wanted to forget they owed, and Jessica has been pacing the floor waiting for a merger to close that's been drawn out far too long. Every time Donna looks up someone is there, wanting, palms outstretched.
She smells it before she looks up at the offender. He offers her a small grin, and points to his office, leaving without giving her the chance to decline.
She has to relocate this morning's paper and a few cases onto the table across from them before she can sink into the chilled couch next to him. He offers her a fork, peeling back the fancy paper box, and the powdery, sugary concoctions waft into the open air, mingling with her nerves. Tiny tarts with fresh slices of strawberry, and slivers of cheesecakes, towers of sturdy chocolate. All tempting her.
Harvey reaches over her shoulder and her heart races. It wouldn't be here. Not like this. He's close enough to inhale, and her breath hitches in anticipation as he pulls a bottle of champagne out from behind her.
Six years ago it was a plastic glass of sparkling wine and a lopsided cupcake with wax dripping onto it from the half-burnt candle.
Last year he forgot.
“Happy Birthday,” he compliments and she can tell he is refraining from making the obligatory age related jokes in favor of soaking in the moment.
It's terrifying.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Is this because of your dad?” Donna bursts in as he widens the door to his condo. “Are you having some sort of mid-life crisis that you forgot to clue me in on?”
“Nice to see you too,” Harvey says, following her, almost running into her as she halts abruptly in the entryway. “Care for a nightcap?”
She furrows her brow, squinting into the open areas of his place. “You got rid of-”
“You hated-”
“You loved-” She counters, angrily, twirling around. “When?”
“I can't remember,” Harvey shrugs, finally moving past her.
“When?” Donna demands, staring at the now empty space. It's the bow on the box, the final nail in the coffin.
“I didn't know you were so invested in the feng shui of my place,” Harvey puffs, pouring himself a drink in a fresh cup, his old one next to it.
“When.”
“Couple months ago- Where are you going?”
She can hear his footsteps chasing her down, but she's quicker, slamming his own door in his face.
The cold wind bites her lungs when she lunges outside, racing away from the scene of the crime.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
He questions her silently the following day, hovering over her shoulder as she types. All she can do is will him away, and make about a million typos that she's pretending don't exist. And she's angry because it's going to take so much longer to proof and edit now that he's back there, playing with her rubber-band ball and pulling on the petals of her white orchid like he hasn't a thing to do. He breaks after lunch, Jessica pulling him away onto the Cole case.
Her resolve begins crumbling around five. All of the rustlings in the file room, the rumors that circulate the cafeteria, the halted sentences that snap as she enters rooms, swarm, engulf her, wrapping their nimble fingers around her neck.
Maybe, they whisper.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Donna.”
“Jessica,” Donna returns, turning around from the files in her hand that are looking for their proper home after Harvey drove a hurricane through their desks late last night. It was in retaliation, she is certain.
“Join me.”
Donna swallows heavily. Normally this would be a fun mission. Who did this, what did you see, what do you know about fill in the blank. She has a gut feeling this might be different.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Why are you doing this to us?” Donna asks, steadily twisting her left heel into the ground. She's had hours to recoup from Jessica's interrogation, and the tables are not pretty when they're turned.
It took a hell of a lot of acting and convincing and manipulation to get out of that room with their boss none the wiser about what's been building between them. She could tell it was a conversation that Jessica had been putting off, a mutual feeling.
“Last time I checked being awesome is what I get paid so well to do.”
She hits the papers out of his hands, letting them fall to the floor. She'll just have to reorganize the entire case file later anyway, what's a few tattered pages in the name of truth.
He raises his eyebrows in question, trying to pick up on the game they are playing. He's in that mood today. She's not.
The room is beginning to fade, light falling into the horizon, and Donna's palms are itching with sweat, throat collapsing, jaw shaking under the tension.
“What?” Harvey asks, seriousness creeping back into his voice. “What happened, Donna? What's wrong?”
Her cheeks are reddening involuntarily, the ending tumbling onto her shoulders. She never imagined this is how they'd disintegrate. “You,” she whispers.
“Me.”
“Why didn't you tell me, we could have fixed this!”
“Tell you what?” Harvey questions, rising, hands tangling into his pockets defensively, hers wrung together, the edges of her bracelet giving way to her nerves.
She's shaking her head because there's no way she's going to say it aloud, for fear of a great many things, affirmation the biggest of her worries. She motions at the space between them, his desk the divider, bottom lip finding a home between her teeth.
“No,” he says, but it's ashamed, not surprised. He's been caught, and he wasn't exactly doing a great job of hiding it.
“I'm going home,” Donna says quietly, to herself. There's really nothing else to be done. The day is technically over. She said what she wanted. Now she needs a drink or three.
“You're mistaken Donna,” he calls after her, half-heartedly.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“That goddamned dinner party,” she says by way of greeting, buzzing him up.
“I had a good time at that dinner party, the company wasn't that bad all things considered,” he tells her when she opens her front door.
Instead of welcoming him, she puts herself in the hallway too. For various reasons, but mainly because he hates Mrs. Abernathy down the hall and knows he won't risk waking her and her seven chihuahuas by raising his voice.
“Save it, Specter,” she says, holding up a hand. She had wanted to drink herself into oblivion all weekend but Friday night she fell into a fit of depression and soothing tea and bubble-bath and today has been spent running errands, and meeting up with friends for some good retail therapy. They asked, why she seemed a little aloof, but she said she was coming down with something and was simply tired. She hasn't called home like she normally does on the weekends for fear of her mother sniffing it out.
“I think this conversation might be better suited to the inside of your apartment, unkempt as it may be.”
Once they make it in they fool themselves with cups of coffee and meaningless talk about what a rotten crop of associates they got this year.
“I'm never wrong,” Donna interrupts.
“You're Donna, you know everything,” Harvey concedes, throwing himself onto her couch, empty mug coming to a rest on a well used, barely legible coaster.
“I didn't know this,” she laments. It smacked her over the head weeks ago, and has been worming its way into every action, every thought. “What are we gonna do?”
“What do you want to do?” Harvey asks quietly, inching his way closer.
It's all she's been asking herself, how to proceed. And how nice it would be to just give in, on a whim, and throw herself at him. But given the benefit of foresight, hindsight and time in this situation she knows it wouldn't go like she'd want. There'd be no squabbling over paint swatches, and which dishes to put on their registry. He wouldn't gasp when she emerged at the end of long aisle in her hometown, and she wouldn't gripe when he'd stay too long at the office on those long winter nights. Late night anniversary dinners, lazy Sunday mornings, quiet evenings of sharing chopsticks. That's not how this would evolve.
They'd smack into each other and fight over every square inch in the name of something that would be unrecognizable by the finale.
She'd rather squash the possibilities before they get out of control. Her fantasies, her vivid imagination, while often a gift, works against her here.
She settles somewhere in a comfortable half-truth.
“I don't want to have to figure out how we end.”
“But you see a beginning,” Harvey picks apart, and Donna already regrets it.
“You should go.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
She cuts her ties slowly, methodically. No more working out of his condo. No more showing up on Saturdays to keep him company (though the things she can learn on one Saturday alone are almost worth it). No lingering, no waiting to burn the midnight oil at her desk. And it helps. Seeing as little of him as possible, it does wonders, for her.
But Harvey's eyes keep boring holes into her back, and sometimes his hands keep trying to guide her through doorways and elevators, and she hasn't had any annoying calls from his many women since she can't remember when. He stands too close for her to breathe anything but him in, and she keeps finding things under her desk, out of plain sight. Tickets for this play, new shoes for that event, a bottle of her favorite wine for no celebration she can recall.
She's not sure if he's apologizing or if she's being courted, and it is exhausting.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Revised briefs for the Durand case,” Donna says, dropping the file on his desk and promptly spinning back around. There's still snow on the ground this morning from the beating the city took over the weekend and the chill running through her spine cannot be stopped by her long black sleeves.
“Wait.”
“What?” Donna asks annoyed, finding it in herself to make eye contact for the first time all week. The space she keeps putting between them has finally managed to feel like a cavern instead of a crevice, she won't lose that traction now.
“Are we not even friends anymore?” Harvey asks, looking for a pen and plucking it out of her hands when she beats him to it. “Look, about that night-”
“We don't talk about that night,” Donna admonishes him. It's for the best.
“Because you don't want to feel anything in that ice pump you call a heart.”
“Me? You were actually called the Grinch this year, and not by Louis or the douchebag associates. Everyone loves me,” she says without thinking, playing into the banter he teased her with.
“You gave them all Christmas bonuses with my money-”
“Well spent,” she reminds him, not brave enough to take a seat in front of his desk or worse the beloved couch. No this is a quick ten minute sparring.
“How's Norma?” Harvey asks, switching gears.
“She's invaluable,” Donna replies off the cuff, and then realizes, “You miss the gossip. You are such a woman.”
“I don't”, he pauses, “sometimes it is useful.”
“I tell you when it's useful.”
“Not lately,” he reminds her. She can't spend longer than twenty seconds alone in this office with him.
“Things slow down after the holidays Harvey, less free alcohol,” Donna says, giving a respite, a pause to interject, to continue. He passes. “Jessica wants you in her office after lunch.”
She lets the curtain fall, sealing it off. Obvious and ugly, it's keeping her on the straight and narrow.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“It's just coffee,” Harvey says, offering the cup as Donna glares at him.
She only let him beat her because she had to corner a paralegal on the 47th floor for a sound scolding. The sky is threatening to open up and she wonders when her heart is going to stop skipping a beat every time he catches her off-guard. The first drop hits her nose as she lifts the cup to her face and Harvey urges her back toward the building with a feather light brush of his hand to her forearm.
She contemplates if he is purposefully baiting her. Teaching her a lesson.
She wonders if he just doesn't know. If everything is such a habit now that they couldn't get off the roller-coaster even if they wanted to.
“Sugar free?” Donna asks, stepping onto the elevator, furthest away from the entrance.
“You'd know if it wasn't,” Harvey grunts at her, looking through what she is sure is emails on his phone.
He's perched up against the wall of the elevator, heel dug into the floor.
It'd be a good time to tell him she is convinced they could never make it work as anything other than the occasional friend and co-worker solution they have. It'd be a great time to remind him they have known this since the day they started “working” together.
She should discourage him.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Fridays are usually hectic, frantic, the world speeding by her desk. When she agreed to this function months ago she had neglected to remind herself to recheck Harvey's schedule for a coincidence. One slip-up has landed her here, wrapped up in someone else's coat, hiding out on the roof in the freezing fog, letting the lights of the city warm her eyes.
It wasn't his date or his presence that bothered her. And she didn't really care that she was here with a man who she found to be slightly inappropriate when intoxicated. Sometimes they saw each other out in the real world, more often at these types of events than at the dry cleaners. She didn't mind making small talk with the particularly vapid brunette he had selected while Harvey and Tate talk newspapers and sports and everything she finds more interesting than silent auctions for charities that are already well endowed.
The problem is that by mid-day Monday, when they have a breath, he's not going to ask her what the hell kind of name Tate is, and she's not going to imply what a fulfilling weekend he must have had.
They're destroying it anyway.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Penny for your thoughts?” She hears hum behind her, hot breath creeping over the edge of her ear.
“I'm worth way more than a-”
“Penny,” Harvey finishes for her.
“You look like a petulant child,” Donna comments, pushing her shoulders back into the jacket she stole.
“Who signs me up for me these things anyway, they couldn't be duller if I was literally watching paint dry.”
“And you whine like one too. Jessica,” Donna nods, catching a glimpse of the woman in the center of the room with a face Harvey wouldn't know the name to if it cost him a million dollars.
“Want to get out of here?” Harvey asks, a glimmer of hope catching her eye.
“Yes,” Donna answers quickly, truthfully. But, it certainly doesn't mean they should be leaving together or even hiding out up here. She swears to God if Jessica shoots her one more of her all-knowing, scolding glances she may well lose her composure.
“There you are,” Tate gushes, the heat from the overstuffed room falling out onto the deck she is occupying.
“Excuse me,” Donna tells Harvey, making her way back to the party. “You should get back to your date before she gets eaten like a baby sea turtle out there.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Monday washes over her with a chilly wave of mediocre. Harvey spends the majority of it in and out of court, things colliding in a way she had little control of. By the time he makes it back to the office it looks like he had little say in how the day's events went too. She tackles filing like it offended her family, Harvey's calendar like it asked for it, and wipes her email clean of any trace of the day. Fifteen minutes later she's messing with her rubber-band ball, waiting for Harvey to hand her the latest developments, send her off chasing her tail in the file room.
Silence, however once desired, weights her shoulders, anchoring her.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
It seems to leave her too briskly. But then, things do always crumble much quicker than they were constructed. She misses the bitter coffee, the sweet anticipation of when he'd reach out for her next, the stress of whether or not anyone was actually catching on. Last she heard, Gloria from Accounting was screwing Henry from Mergers. Which should be a good thing, that she isn't having to spin and weave the rumor mill away from her any longer.
It's a blessing.
She spends the weekend attempting to become zen, drinking the disgusting white wine her sister sent for her birthday, and ignoring the human race.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
He surprises her sometimes. Not often. Less and less as the years tick by, but when she arrives early to find music seeping under the glass of his door it sneaks up and steals her breath.
She's waved in, he points to the wall of records, imploring.
And after almost a decade of getting up earlier than she would have ever thought back in her college days, the chore feels a little ridiculous. Music shouldn't be setting a mood for the day when the sun hasn't even bothered to make an appearance yet. The room feels thick and cloying, like she should reach out and grab a handful before it forces its way into her mouth.
“Donna.”
“Harvey.”
She finds one she likes, amongst the many, and pulls it from the shelf, examining the sleeve. “Did you get lost on your way home this morning?”
“I wanted to talk to you,” Harvey says confidently, but deflates when he catches the glint of something he can't place that crosses her face.
“And that required showing up four hours earlier than normal? You know I prefer my peace in the morning.”
He ignores her, crossing the room, close enough to breathe in. He's fresh and crisp and her mind is still muddled from the lack of caffeine coursing through it.
He wiggles his way in nearer and nearer, expertly, causing her to back into the record player. It jumps at her touch and she can see his instant frown at the likely damage to one of his favorite records. He clears his throat, hands diving into his pockets while her fingertips itch to reach out and straighten his tie ever so slightly.
“We could never go back,” he tells her firmly, quietly.
She nods like she understands. She's thought of it far too many times to count anymore. The likely conclusions, the unforeseen damage. Leave it to him to come up with an answer in his own sweet time when it's been hammering against her skull for years upon years.
It is everything though.
And as he backs away again it sinks in like a dull knife. The risk may well not be worth the reward.
“You're assuming I want to go forward,” Donna replies, meekly. Hell, even she isn't buying it. The world is doused in kerosene and she's standing in the middle, like an idiot. Just like her mother said she would be, just like her friends warned her. There's a warm rage starting to boil. How did this whole thing come to be her issue instead of his. Arrogant, sonofabitc-
“I'll be working from home today. Call Ray, and tell Jessica when she arrives, and don't even think about letting Louis in here.”
“Right,” she gulps back, turning away.
“I'll see you tomorrow,” Harvey says, packing papers, finding his own coat.
“We're okay,” he tells her, like there was some other option she might have settled upon somewhere in the span of the last fifteen minutes. He's waiting though. Poised to exit, but held back by something.
“We're okay,” she parrots. “We're great.” Time heals all wounds, she recalls.
“Drinks tonight? Usual spot?”
She hasn't seen him wear hope in so long. It's ill-fitted, too snug in the neck.
“I'm busy.”
She isn't, unless you count the third of a bottle of chilled white wine in the refrigerator. He'll make new plans anyway.
“You should stay,” Donna decides impulsively. “I don't want to deal with everyone flipping out and couriering things back and forth all day.” He looks uncertain, not a look she enjoys. “Stay,” she smiles, the edges of her lips curling and cracking from their lack of use yet.
“Yeah?”
She's already bypassed him on the way to the door, Miles Davis drawing to a close behind her. “I'll get the coffee.”
Maybe is hastily replaced with time, time, time chanting, demanding immediate resolution.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Pairing: Harvey/Donna. Suits.
Part: 1/2
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: A slightly different take to everything.
A/N: Told myself I would finish this before the new season began. All mistakes and crazy are my own. Enjoy-
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Weak Wrists
- Beware of Safety
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
The sun hangs high in the sky on a Tuesday in a sea of other normal weekdays. Outside there are rumblings of finished cases and fresh ones being cracked wide open. The phone rings, twice. She glares at Louis as he approached the glass door they are hiding behind and he makes an abrupt right turn. Harvey's hands are laced behind his head, not an apparent care in the world, and she's wondering who is going to speak first. Utter the god-awful words that need be said.
She looks to the records, lost.
She's not really sure how she allowed this to happen, and the niggling feeling in the pit of her stomach that everything is now ablaze is not something that will be easily forgotten.
Donna hears papers begin to shuffle behind her, one heel twisting in as she perches precariously between addressing this and letting it waver out into the canyon of other inappropriate moments they've shared and don't discuss.
But she hates the way he's been looking at her, it makes her heart turn nervously, flipping, sloshing.
Her free hand brushes against the arm of his leather couch, the one she bitched at him for buying because it's heavy as hell and once his decorator fled the scene she was left to reorganize the disaster. Her shoulders ached for days after, but there was that fleeting moment when they slid down the back and fell to the floor in a pile of delirious delight, high off closing a deal and betting against the odds again that almost made it worth it.
He's not going to say it.
She's not sure she's willing to jeopardize the memories. The heat from the coffee in her hand begins to burn, her palm alive with fire, her heart confused, brain screaming, “Don't!”.
“Harvey,” she starts determined. He spins in his chair, facing her when she finally can look back.
There's an orange glow about the building, warmth becoming stifling, she itches to turn on a fan. “We need to talk.”
She hears a groan, and curses the phrasing, no matter how true it may be.
“I know you're mad about A-Rod but I stand behind that decision. Stop listening to Brett, he's leading you astray about Youkilis, ” he tells her for the third time this week.
She gestures to the drink in her hand and he raises his eyebrows. “I usually bring you the coffee,” she states plainly.
“Am I not allowed to do a nice thing for someone else for once?”
He's challenging her. And he doesn't do nice things, not that are noticeable to just anyone passing by. It's a grenade thrown out into overrun field. “We're celebrating...early birthday present,” he dismisses, pointing to the door and the phone that's ringing again. It never stops.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Come on Donna, what do you have going on anyway?”
“I have plans,” she says softly.
She doesn't. He'll make new ones.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
She's embarrassed that she wasn't the first one to know, might never admit it if she's cornered. It shouldn't be terribly surprising.
It is.
He's working late on an awkward Thursday, the city abuzz below with holiday traffic and tourists trying new things. And she waits. Waits until Jessica nods a goodnight in her direction, waits until her mind can finish analyzing every tiny thing that has happened in the last two weeks, three months, a year. God, she can't figure out when it started, really. The progression was so natural, they didn't keep things in check that they should have, and she knows better than this.
She's been warned half a million times by family, by friends, by co-workers, Louis.
“Harvey,” she sputters, stepping into his office and closing the door. There are times when she honestly wishes he had shades, or that he did his work in the library or anywhere else that might be less visible than this trophy case.
“You're here late,” he commends, glancing over the edge of a file.
“You have to stop,” she demands, hands trying to find their place on her hips, but they flop, fall to her sides. She doesn't want to have to spell it out for him. Writing it down may be easier than this conversation, but then there'd be tangible evidence.
“You're going to ruin it,” she warns. If it hasn't already been ruined.
“Donna, I think what he have here is a failure to communicate. You see I don't know what you are so intent on stopping, and I have things to do.”
“Your calendar suggests otherwise,” she tells him and he dips his head to look at the computer, she's not wrong. Never is, unfortunately.
“Out,” he scolds, waiving towards the door.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
It'd almost be easier, turn into that cliché, run wild with the gossip, her hair knotted with guilt, immense pleasure.
Except one tiny thing.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
It's one issue after the other today. Louis has been banned from the fax machine for making it angry, Contracts is pissed off at her for calling in a favor they wanted to forget they owed, and Jessica has been pacing the floor waiting for a merger to close that's been drawn out far too long. Every time Donna looks up someone is there, wanting, palms outstretched.
She smells it before she looks up at the offender. He offers her a small grin, and points to his office, leaving without giving her the chance to decline.
She has to relocate this morning's paper and a few cases onto the table across from them before she can sink into the chilled couch next to him. He offers her a fork, peeling back the fancy paper box, and the powdery, sugary concoctions waft into the open air, mingling with her nerves. Tiny tarts with fresh slices of strawberry, and slivers of cheesecakes, towers of sturdy chocolate. All tempting her.
Harvey reaches over her shoulder and her heart races. It wouldn't be here. Not like this. He's close enough to inhale, and her breath hitches in anticipation as he pulls a bottle of champagne out from behind her.
Six years ago it was a plastic glass of sparkling wine and a lopsided cupcake with wax dripping onto it from the half-burnt candle.
Last year he forgot.
“Happy Birthday,” he compliments and she can tell he is refraining from making the obligatory age related jokes in favor of soaking in the moment.
It's terrifying.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Is this because of your dad?” Donna bursts in as he widens the door to his condo. “Are you having some sort of mid-life crisis that you forgot to clue me in on?”
“Nice to see you too,” Harvey says, following her, almost running into her as she halts abruptly in the entryway. “Care for a nightcap?”
She furrows her brow, squinting into the open areas of his place. “You got rid of-”
“You hated-”
“You loved-” She counters, angrily, twirling around. “When?”
“I can't remember,” Harvey shrugs, finally moving past her.
“When?” Donna demands, staring at the now empty space. It's the bow on the box, the final nail in the coffin.
“I didn't know you were so invested in the feng shui of my place,” Harvey puffs, pouring himself a drink in a fresh cup, his old one next to it.
“When.”
“Couple months ago- Where are you going?”
She can hear his footsteps chasing her down, but she's quicker, slamming his own door in his face.
The cold wind bites her lungs when she lunges outside, racing away from the scene of the crime.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
He questions her silently the following day, hovering over her shoulder as she types. All she can do is will him away, and make about a million typos that she's pretending don't exist. And she's angry because it's going to take so much longer to proof and edit now that he's back there, playing with her rubber-band ball and pulling on the petals of her white orchid like he hasn't a thing to do. He breaks after lunch, Jessica pulling him away onto the Cole case.
Her resolve begins crumbling around five. All of the rustlings in the file room, the rumors that circulate the cafeteria, the halted sentences that snap as she enters rooms, swarm, engulf her, wrapping their nimble fingers around her neck.
Maybe, they whisper.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Donna.”
“Jessica,” Donna returns, turning around from the files in her hand that are looking for their proper home after Harvey drove a hurricane through their desks late last night. It was in retaliation, she is certain.
“Join me.”
Donna swallows heavily. Normally this would be a fun mission. Who did this, what did you see, what do you know about fill in the blank. She has a gut feeling this might be different.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Why are you doing this to us?” Donna asks, steadily twisting her left heel into the ground. She's had hours to recoup from Jessica's interrogation, and the tables are not pretty when they're turned.
It took a hell of a lot of acting and convincing and manipulation to get out of that room with their boss none the wiser about what's been building between them. She could tell it was a conversation that Jessica had been putting off, a mutual feeling.
“Last time I checked being awesome is what I get paid so well to do.”
She hits the papers out of his hands, letting them fall to the floor. She'll just have to reorganize the entire case file later anyway, what's a few tattered pages in the name of truth.
He raises his eyebrows in question, trying to pick up on the game they are playing. He's in that mood today. She's not.
The room is beginning to fade, light falling into the horizon, and Donna's palms are itching with sweat, throat collapsing, jaw shaking under the tension.
“What?” Harvey asks, seriousness creeping back into his voice. “What happened, Donna? What's wrong?”
Her cheeks are reddening involuntarily, the ending tumbling onto her shoulders. She never imagined this is how they'd disintegrate. “You,” she whispers.
“Me.”
“Why didn't you tell me, we could have fixed this!”
“Tell you what?” Harvey questions, rising, hands tangling into his pockets defensively, hers wrung together, the edges of her bracelet giving way to her nerves.
She's shaking her head because there's no way she's going to say it aloud, for fear of a great many things, affirmation the biggest of her worries. She motions at the space between them, his desk the divider, bottom lip finding a home between her teeth.
“No,” he says, but it's ashamed, not surprised. He's been caught, and he wasn't exactly doing a great job of hiding it.
“I'm going home,” Donna says quietly, to herself. There's really nothing else to be done. The day is technically over. She said what she wanted. Now she needs a drink or three.
“You're mistaken Donna,” he calls after her, half-heartedly.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“That goddamned dinner party,” she says by way of greeting, buzzing him up.
“I had a good time at that dinner party, the company wasn't that bad all things considered,” he tells her when she opens her front door.
Instead of welcoming him, she puts herself in the hallway too. For various reasons, but mainly because he hates Mrs. Abernathy down the hall and knows he won't risk waking her and her seven chihuahuas by raising his voice.
“Save it, Specter,” she says, holding up a hand. She had wanted to drink herself into oblivion all weekend but Friday night she fell into a fit of depression and soothing tea and bubble-bath and today has been spent running errands, and meeting up with friends for some good retail therapy. They asked, why she seemed a little aloof, but she said she was coming down with something and was simply tired. She hasn't called home like she normally does on the weekends for fear of her mother sniffing it out.
“I think this conversation might be better suited to the inside of your apartment, unkempt as it may be.”
Once they make it in they fool themselves with cups of coffee and meaningless talk about what a rotten crop of associates they got this year.
“I'm never wrong,” Donna interrupts.
“You're Donna, you know everything,” Harvey concedes, throwing himself onto her couch, empty mug coming to a rest on a well used, barely legible coaster.
“I didn't know this,” she laments. It smacked her over the head weeks ago, and has been worming its way into every action, every thought. “What are we gonna do?”
“What do you want to do?” Harvey asks quietly, inching his way closer.
It's all she's been asking herself, how to proceed. And how nice it would be to just give in, on a whim, and throw herself at him. But given the benefit of foresight, hindsight and time in this situation she knows it wouldn't go like she'd want. There'd be no squabbling over paint swatches, and which dishes to put on their registry. He wouldn't gasp when she emerged at the end of long aisle in her hometown, and she wouldn't gripe when he'd stay too long at the office on those long winter nights. Late night anniversary dinners, lazy Sunday mornings, quiet evenings of sharing chopsticks. That's not how this would evolve.
They'd smack into each other and fight over every square inch in the name of something that would be unrecognizable by the finale.
She'd rather squash the possibilities before they get out of control. Her fantasies, her vivid imagination, while often a gift, works against her here.
She settles somewhere in a comfortable half-truth.
“I don't want to have to figure out how we end.”
“But you see a beginning,” Harvey picks apart, and Donna already regrets it.
“You should go.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
She cuts her ties slowly, methodically. No more working out of his condo. No more showing up on Saturdays to keep him company (though the things she can learn on one Saturday alone are almost worth it). No lingering, no waiting to burn the midnight oil at her desk. And it helps. Seeing as little of him as possible, it does wonders, for her.
But Harvey's eyes keep boring holes into her back, and sometimes his hands keep trying to guide her through doorways and elevators, and she hasn't had any annoying calls from his many women since she can't remember when. He stands too close for her to breathe anything but him in, and she keeps finding things under her desk, out of plain sight. Tickets for this play, new shoes for that event, a bottle of her favorite wine for no celebration she can recall.
She's not sure if he's apologizing or if she's being courted, and it is exhausting.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Revised briefs for the Durand case,” Donna says, dropping the file on his desk and promptly spinning back around. There's still snow on the ground this morning from the beating the city took over the weekend and the chill running through her spine cannot be stopped by her long black sleeves.
“Wait.”
“What?” Donna asks annoyed, finding it in herself to make eye contact for the first time all week. The space she keeps putting between them has finally managed to feel like a cavern instead of a crevice, she won't lose that traction now.
“Are we not even friends anymore?” Harvey asks, looking for a pen and plucking it out of her hands when she beats him to it. “Look, about that night-”
“We don't talk about that night,” Donna admonishes him. It's for the best.
“Because you don't want to feel anything in that ice pump you call a heart.”
“Me? You were actually called the Grinch this year, and not by Louis or the douchebag associates. Everyone loves me,” she says without thinking, playing into the banter he teased her with.
“You gave them all Christmas bonuses with my money-”
“Well spent,” she reminds him, not brave enough to take a seat in front of his desk or worse the beloved couch. No this is a quick ten minute sparring.
“How's Norma?” Harvey asks, switching gears.
“She's invaluable,” Donna replies off the cuff, and then realizes, “You miss the gossip. You are such a woman.”
“I don't”, he pauses, “sometimes it is useful.”
“I tell you when it's useful.”
“Not lately,” he reminds her. She can't spend longer than twenty seconds alone in this office with him.
“Things slow down after the holidays Harvey, less free alcohol,” Donna says, giving a respite, a pause to interject, to continue. He passes. “Jessica wants you in her office after lunch.”
She lets the curtain fall, sealing it off. Obvious and ugly, it's keeping her on the straight and narrow.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“It's just coffee,” Harvey says, offering the cup as Donna glares at him.
She only let him beat her because she had to corner a paralegal on the 47th floor for a sound scolding. The sky is threatening to open up and she wonders when her heart is going to stop skipping a beat every time he catches her off-guard. The first drop hits her nose as she lifts the cup to her face and Harvey urges her back toward the building with a feather light brush of his hand to her forearm.
She contemplates if he is purposefully baiting her. Teaching her a lesson.
She wonders if he just doesn't know. If everything is such a habit now that they couldn't get off the roller-coaster even if they wanted to.
“Sugar free?” Donna asks, stepping onto the elevator, furthest away from the entrance.
“You'd know if it wasn't,” Harvey grunts at her, looking through what she is sure is emails on his phone.
He's perched up against the wall of the elevator, heel dug into the floor.
It'd be a good time to tell him she is convinced they could never make it work as anything other than the occasional friend and co-worker solution they have. It'd be a great time to remind him they have known this since the day they started “working” together.
She should discourage him.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Fridays are usually hectic, frantic, the world speeding by her desk. When she agreed to this function months ago she had neglected to remind herself to recheck Harvey's schedule for a coincidence. One slip-up has landed her here, wrapped up in someone else's coat, hiding out on the roof in the freezing fog, letting the lights of the city warm her eyes.
It wasn't his date or his presence that bothered her. And she didn't really care that she was here with a man who she found to be slightly inappropriate when intoxicated. Sometimes they saw each other out in the real world, more often at these types of events than at the dry cleaners. She didn't mind making small talk with the particularly vapid brunette he had selected while Harvey and Tate talk newspapers and sports and everything she finds more interesting than silent auctions for charities that are already well endowed.
The problem is that by mid-day Monday, when they have a breath, he's not going to ask her what the hell kind of name Tate is, and she's not going to imply what a fulfilling weekend he must have had.
They're destroying it anyway.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Penny for your thoughts?” She hears hum behind her, hot breath creeping over the edge of her ear.
“I'm worth way more than a-”
“Penny,” Harvey finishes for her.
“You look like a petulant child,” Donna comments, pushing her shoulders back into the jacket she stole.
“Who signs me up for me these things anyway, they couldn't be duller if I was literally watching paint dry.”
“And you whine like one too. Jessica,” Donna nods, catching a glimpse of the woman in the center of the room with a face Harvey wouldn't know the name to if it cost him a million dollars.
“Want to get out of here?” Harvey asks, a glimmer of hope catching her eye.
“Yes,” Donna answers quickly, truthfully. But, it certainly doesn't mean they should be leaving together or even hiding out up here. She swears to God if Jessica shoots her one more of her all-knowing, scolding glances she may well lose her composure.
“There you are,” Tate gushes, the heat from the overstuffed room falling out onto the deck she is occupying.
“Excuse me,” Donna tells Harvey, making her way back to the party. “You should get back to your date before she gets eaten like a baby sea turtle out there.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Monday washes over her with a chilly wave of mediocre. Harvey spends the majority of it in and out of court, things colliding in a way she had little control of. By the time he makes it back to the office it looks like he had little say in how the day's events went too. She tackles filing like it offended her family, Harvey's calendar like it asked for it, and wipes her email clean of any trace of the day. Fifteen minutes later she's messing with her rubber-band ball, waiting for Harvey to hand her the latest developments, send her off chasing her tail in the file room.
Silence, however once desired, weights her shoulders, anchoring her.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
It seems to leave her too briskly. But then, things do always crumble much quicker than they were constructed. She misses the bitter coffee, the sweet anticipation of when he'd reach out for her next, the stress of whether or not anyone was actually catching on. Last she heard, Gloria from Accounting was screwing Henry from Mergers. Which should be a good thing, that she isn't having to spin and weave the rumor mill away from her any longer.
It's a blessing.
She spends the weekend attempting to become zen, drinking the disgusting white wine her sister sent for her birthday, and ignoring the human race.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
He surprises her sometimes. Not often. Less and less as the years tick by, but when she arrives early to find music seeping under the glass of his door it sneaks up and steals her breath.
She's waved in, he points to the wall of records, imploring.
And after almost a decade of getting up earlier than she would have ever thought back in her college days, the chore feels a little ridiculous. Music shouldn't be setting a mood for the day when the sun hasn't even bothered to make an appearance yet. The room feels thick and cloying, like she should reach out and grab a handful before it forces its way into her mouth.
“Donna.”
“Harvey.”
She finds one she likes, amongst the many, and pulls it from the shelf, examining the sleeve. “Did you get lost on your way home this morning?”
“I wanted to talk to you,” Harvey says confidently, but deflates when he catches the glint of something he can't place that crosses her face.
“And that required showing up four hours earlier than normal? You know I prefer my peace in the morning.”
He ignores her, crossing the room, close enough to breathe in. He's fresh and crisp and her mind is still muddled from the lack of caffeine coursing through it.
He wiggles his way in nearer and nearer, expertly, causing her to back into the record player. It jumps at her touch and she can see his instant frown at the likely damage to one of his favorite records. He clears his throat, hands diving into his pockets while her fingertips itch to reach out and straighten his tie ever so slightly.
“We could never go back,” he tells her firmly, quietly.
She nods like she understands. She's thought of it far too many times to count anymore. The likely conclusions, the unforeseen damage. Leave it to him to come up with an answer in his own sweet time when it's been hammering against her skull for years upon years.
It is everything though.
And as he backs away again it sinks in like a dull knife. The risk may well not be worth the reward.
“You're assuming I want to go forward,” Donna replies, meekly. Hell, even she isn't buying it. The world is doused in kerosene and she's standing in the middle, like an idiot. Just like her mother said she would be, just like her friends warned her. There's a warm rage starting to boil. How did this whole thing come to be her issue instead of his. Arrogant, sonofabitc-
“I'll be working from home today. Call Ray, and tell Jessica when she arrives, and don't even think about letting Louis in here.”
“Right,” she gulps back, turning away.
“I'll see you tomorrow,” Harvey says, packing papers, finding his own coat.
“We're okay,” he tells her, like there was some other option she might have settled upon somewhere in the span of the last fifteen minutes. He's waiting though. Poised to exit, but held back by something.
“We're okay,” she parrots. “We're great.” Time heals all wounds, she recalls.
“Drinks tonight? Usual spot?”
She hasn't seen him wear hope in so long. It's ill-fitted, too snug in the neck.
“I'm busy.”
She isn't, unless you count the third of a bottle of chilled white wine in the refrigerator. He'll make new plans anyway.
“You should stay,” Donna decides impulsively. “I don't want to deal with everyone flipping out and couriering things back and forth all day.” He looks uncertain, not a look she enjoys. “Stay,” she smiles, the edges of her lips curling and cracking from their lack of use yet.
“Yeah?”
She's already bypassed him on the way to the door, Miles Davis drawing to a close behind her. “I'll get the coffee.”
Maybe is hastily replaced with time, time, time chanting, demanding immediate resolution.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~