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Donna was staring out the expansive window of Harvey’s office overlooking the late hour of bustling Midtown madness when she closed her eyes as she heard his familiar footsteps outside the hallway. It was late enough that he’d be the only one coming this way, but that still doesn’t change the fact that she’d be able to pick out his steady gait out of the hundred employees at Pearson Specter.
She caught his reflection and twisted her fingers in shame.
“Harvey,” she called out and watched the reflection step into his own office before she began to turn around.
“You don’t need to say it,” he said with a quiet rage discernable only to her ears. It isn’t directed at her, but she feels like it should be. At least, partially.
“Yeah, I do,” she confirmed as she turned to face him. She paused for a moment before walking towards him as he came around to stand at the corner of his desk. “Louis came looking for you, and I didn’t know what to do. He was going to call Sheila and tell her everything. I’d never seen him like that before.”
She shrugged her shoulders and lifted her hands and for the first time, Harvey saw the smudged mascara and tear tracks bleeding through her typically put together self.
“Donna, this is not on you,” he told her honestly. Because it was him. And Mike. And they thought they were invincible. She had always been the voice of reason, but he hadn’t listened to her this time.
“Yes, it is. He pressed me, and I broke,” she registered a sniffle, and her eyes met his. Hers was full of shame. His were full of contempt. But still, none of it directed at her.
“It doesn’t matter because he already knew,” he tries as he broke his gaze and looked down at her defeated posture before returning to lock eyes with her again.
“How can you know that?” She shook her head. She’s the one that reads people. Not him. Well, he can’t always know as she knows. He’s Harvey, not Donna.
“Because I know Louis,” he begins, and she watches as he steps around his desk. “And I know you. And he couldn’t have broken you unless he knew the truth already. So, this is not your fault, and I never want to hear you say that again.”
He’s standing in front of her and saying all these words and keeping his eyes locked on hers, knowing she’d see that he’s telling her the truth.
“I should have at least warned you before you got here,” she says with a flippant gesture. It’s all too much and yet not enough.
“All that would have done was antagonize him even more because he would have known you did it,” he says as he shakes his head. His fingers unconsciously reach out, and they press her wrist and linger before encircling them. And he does it all without breaking eye contact. “You did everything you could have done.”
“Okay,” she gets out, and her shoulders shrug a little and his hold slips. Their fingers brush for the briefest of moments. Its a staring contest between them as they continue a wordless conversation to finalize their roles in this new hellscape they’ve just made.
“We have to tell Mike,” she notes with as much care as possible.
“No we don’t,” he shakes his head and drops his hands back to his side. “Not now.”
“Harvey,” she whispers.
He watches her lips rather than her eyes now.
“I’ll tell him in the morning. He just had a huge win, and I am not in the mood to ruin his night,” he notes as he shakes his head.
A single tear falls as she nods her head. She understands but she’s also one hundred percent certain this isn’t going to be a favour to anyone come tomorrow.
He takes another look at her and reaches deep into his pocket of his suit jacket and pulls out a brilliant white pocket square that’s been hidden in the suit jacket all day. He hands it to her with a quiet sort of acceptance that they’re now here of all places.
She swallows the lump in her throat and unfolds the square once, blotting at the trail of tears before moving to where she knows she looks like a bit of a sad, mangy raccoon.
He has the decency to look away for a moment to let her clean up before he turns back to look at her.
“Come on,” he says after she’s a little more put together. He can still see how defeated and sorry she is by her eyes and her posture. “Let’s go home. There’s nothing more we can do tonight.”
There’s a quiet moment once again as he helps her into her coat and they make it out to the car Harvey’s parked at the curb. He opens the passenger door for her, and after she buckles in, she takes hold of her hair, so it doesn’t fly all over the place when he does eventually get to pick up speed. When he turns the block three times to head to the Upper East Side, she hums and resigns herself to an evening in his company.
He means his home and not separate homes, and for once, she doesn’t give a shit how it looks. He’s done this a handful of times in the last year if she’s really honest with herself. Plus, she’s mentally and physically exhausted from the past two hours and doesn’t have the energy to protest.
She doesn’t have an appetite, and he doesn’t force the issue. He promises to make waffles and berries in the morning since he’s pretty sure Mike had eaten all the good cereal she likes when he had been avoiding Rachel. He’s kind of glad the kid is at some other place tonight.
He gives her a spare undershirt and a pair of clean gym shorts. She digs through a washroom drawer to find a new head for his Sonicare and makes sure that her brush head’s coloured ring was not the same as his that already sits atop the brush base. She pulls an extra washcloth and uses his facewash to remove her makeup, and when she comes out of the washroom, he’s already turned down his bed and dressed in sweatpants and a similar undershirt.
She lets him slink past her, sticks her clothes on his dresser by the mirror, and then she moves around to the right side of the bed and slips in and rests her head on one of the soft feathered pillows. He’s also pulled the blanket out. The one from his father’s house that she always curled up in on their holiday or long weekend visits. When they had been dividing little things after his death, Marcus handed over the blanket without a second thought. And here he is, using it without a second thought. Shit, she thinks, she must look really fucking pitiful if Harvey’s initiating so many gestures tonight without prompting. This thought causes her to sigh, and he wordlessly questions her with a raised brow as he slips in on his side. As a gesture, she shares her blanket–spreading it horizontally over their middles.
His fingers slide along bare skin on her arm as she curls up against his side, her head resting in the space between his chest and shoulder. He’ll have a tingling, almost dead arm by the time she falls asleep. His rage has lessened in her presence and the quiet, gentle rhythm he’s established listening to her breathing as well as his gentle touch on her skin. And its less than an hour after she slips into sleep that he finally does, too.
In the morning, he’ll be on his stomach with his mouth a little open, and she’ll be on her side, leaning against him, sleeping more on his side of the bed than her own. She slips out of his bed and grabs one of her spare dresses she has in the back of his closet– like he has a few spare suits in the back of hers. She’ll shower and dig through her purse to find her emergency makeup bag that has limited items but enough to not have to go home.
When she finally looks at her phone, she finds Rachel’s texted her sometime in the night after she had turned the do not disturb function on and she warns Harvey as she’s finishing up her waffles that Mike is most likely going to come to him.
He tells her to take the car, meaning Ray, and as soon as Ray texts that he’s outside the building, Donna shrugs on her coat and Harvey’s still eating waffles at the table.
She leans in and her fingers grip his arm as she presses a kiss to his cheek.
“Thank you, Harvey,” she whispers with a small smile.
He nods through a mouthful of syrupy breakfast food and watches her leave.
Almost fifteen minutes later, Mike shows up.
There’s a tap and rap rhythm on her door, and she knows it’s him because no one else knocks like he’s trying to do a poor man’s morse code. She blows a breath out as she leaves her wine glass on the coffee table in front of her and unfolds herself from the couch to get the door.
When she opens the door, she doesn’t have to force a smile because she’s had a hell of a day and its only gotten worse for both of them, and his face mirrors her own.
She opens the door a little more to let him sneak past her, and she closes and locks the door.
“Rachel here?” He asks as he looks around and then back to her.
“No. I’m pretty sure they made up,” she shakes her head as she watches him look at her and then he moves to her living room and sets the paper takeout bag in hand on the floor, and he sheds his suit jacket before sitting down.
“Sure, make yourself at home,” she says sarcastically but moves to the kitchen and pulls out a wine glass for him.
He sits on the couch and looks at the bottle next to her own glass and pretends he knows about wine and his lips upturn in interest and he finds her looking at him with a small smile.
“Pretending you know if that’s good or not?” Donna says as she taps his knees with her legs because he doesn’t move and she sits down and sets the glass on the table.
Instead of letting her pour, he tops off her glass and fills his own before returning the bottle to the table.
He starts pulling food out of his paper bag and hands her a little takeout box that has three stars on the edge and she hides a smile as he takes out his own that has two stars.
“The shitty Thai place?” she asks as he gets up and moves to her kitchen to get their expensive, non-wood chopsticks she keeps in her utensil drawer. One of her better investments, he thinks, with how much Asian food they’ve consumed in the past fifteen years. “You must really want my company.”
He hands her a pair when he returns, and she sits criss-cross on the couch as he toes off his shoes to then sets his feet on the edge of the coffee table in front of him.
He watches her start to eat before he focuses on her own. Her television is off, and one of his dad’s records quietly plays in the background, and he swallows the guilt.
“Did you and Rachel share a bed?” He jokes as he notices her couch is a little better than his own for sleeping and there aren’t any blankets laying around or messily over the back of any chair.
“I told you once that how I sleep is none of your concern,” she says with a laugh as she sipped her wine.
“And that still doesn’t stop me from thinking about it,” he points out.
“Asshole,” she shakes her head. “But, no. I mean, did you and Mike share a bed?”
“He likes your side,” Harvey jokes. “He did, however, eat all the cereal. I mean he even ate the Raisin Bran Crunch which I’m pretty sure was really old.”
“That damn kid,” Donna sighs dramatically. “That’s why we had waffles this morning.”
“Yep,” Harvey said through a mouthful of noodles.
Donna shook her head.
Once they were finished with their food, he bags all their trash and moves into the kitchen to throw it in her bin. He sees the photo sitting at the kitchen table next to her purse and his lips form a frown. He brings the framed photo back to the couch, and he has a million questions, but he knows she gave the photo to Louis less than a month ago.
“This morning I found that face down on my desk,” she says as she picks up her glass and swirls the dark red liquid around. “I told him I didn’t want him to throw our friendship away over this. And he said it didn’t exist in the first place.”
She takes a moment to sip her wine and then traces the rim of the glass.
“He asked if I had the chance to take back all the nice things I’ve ever done in the name of our friendship in exchange for him not finding out, if I would do it.”
He takes a mouthful of wine, and his fingers tighten on the stem.
“I didn’t answer,” she shrugged a shoulder. “It was a bullshit question asked to make me feel like shit. And, it worked.”
“Donna,” he says quietly and his fingers land on her knee.
“The worst part was when he told me I was dead to him,” she said as she looked at him. She had unshed tears in her eyes, and he could tell that she was biting her lip before she hid her mouth for a moment by drinking her wine again.
Louis was going after her because he knew damn well it was the best way to get to him. The man had recently called him cold. And he’ll take it every day if he has to, but as soon as someone comes after someone he cares about, especially the woman beside him, they better strap in and prepare for his overprotective nature.
He fills their glasses one last time, and he motions for her to sit by him. She curls into a different angle where her side is flush with his. His arm moves up and over her shoulder, slowly tracing the same pattern up and down on her robe-covered arm as they sit in the quiet of her apartment with the only sound his father’s saxophone and the occasional sigh as the wine helps them unwind for the night.
“You want me to stay?” He asks quietly as they both finish off the last of the wine.
“Its okay,” she shakes her head and moves into a seated position.
He nods and stands, shrugging on his suit jacket, and he watches as she stands.
She walks him to the door, and he promises to pick her up tomorrow because he’ll be in early to meet with Jessica and she agrees.
His fingers gently grasp her forearm and slowly slide down to encircle her wrist. He leans in and presses his lips to her temple, and he catches her eye as he moves back.
“Goodnight, Donna,” he says quietly.
“Night, Harvey,” she echoes.
She watches him as he walks down the hall to the elevator in her building before shutting and locking the door.
Louis was slowly moving up his shit list, and it had been Harvey’s and Jessica’s day with the announcing of his partnership and the half-truths Harvey had to spout and pretend like he was thrilled this was happening.
And it had only gotten worse when Robert Zane called in his favour, and he had to use leverage against Scottie when all he wanted to do was keep their relationship at status quo and not have this shit hanging over their heads. Donna had offered to call and set up the meeting, but he had shaken his head. He needed to do this. She understood.
So, she didn’t question when he took his ‘me’ time to the coffee cart a few minutes later. And an hour later when she was finishing up setting up a few client meetings with Cline’s people, he was in her space, setting down a cruller and one of her specialty drinks with extra, extra whipped cream.
For the rest of the day, he sat at the chair nearest his basketballs, and she took the couch cushion closest to him, working silently on case files.
He had been out of sorts and forgot niceties by the time seven pm rolled around. It had been a short meeting with Scottie, and when he was about to text Ray to come back and get him, a familiar individual leaned against the Lexus stopped at the curb.
“What the hell happened now?” He asks as he rubs his temples.
“He’s requested a party with cake and champagne,” Donna says as she stands up straight.
“Goddamn Louis,” Harvey says as he clenches his jaw.
“Jessica was looking for you, so I told her I would have my guys take care of it since we know Louis and he’s going to make all of us more miserable if we get it wrong,” Donna says. “I told her I would tell you.”
He blew out a breath and she knew without asking none of it went well despite the fact he had succeeded for Robert Zane.
“Come on,” she says to him as she stands away from the door. “Let’s go get barbeque, make a pit stop, and then go home.”
“Barbeque?” He asks as he opens the door and he hears Ray start the car.
“We can also blame Robert Zane for it,” she shrugs before she ducks into the car.
He has a genuine smile on his face for the first time in several hours as walks to the other side, and when he gets in, he lets Ray know the agenda.
They went to Fette Sau and ordered all the barbeque thanks to Donna’s conversation with Robert earlier, and Donna couldn’t stop craving ribs and brisket for the rest of the day. They had Ray come in with them, and Harvey’s driver tried to sit at the counter, but Donna was having none of it and told him he was their chaperone since Donna tended to be very territorial about her barbeque and Harvey tended to order something else off the menu and steal her food. Harvey countered that he ordered other things so they could share and that’s why he takes things because she does it, too.
Ray agreed, if only to see Donna’s forceful beauty extend to protecting a little piece of barbeque heaven from his boss.
As its an agenda item, Harvey made one last stop that night. Its why he got an extra order of ribs with extra spicy sauce, potato salad, and baked beans to go. And, a half hour later he was at the door with a bag and a case file that doesn’t say Pearson Specter… now Pearson Specter Litt.
“It’s done,” Harvey says as he hands over a white takeout bag and the case file to Robert when he opened the front door. “We’re even.”
The older lawyer frowns in slight confusion as he watches as Harvey moves to the far side of the Lexus. The windows are too tinted, but as the lights turn on from the open door, he can see there’s a familiar silhouette in the window that he had seen earlier that day in Harvey’s office talking about the barbeque he now holds in his hand.
“Shit,” he whispers to himself as he watches the Lexus drive away.
As with all meaningful confrontations, Harvey corners Louis in the Pearson Specter Litt washrooms after he had seen Donna get back to her desk to slowly sit in her chair and then run a hand through her hair, her posture showing slight defeat.
Thankfully the door is on a hinge that prevents his anger from ruining the door with the force he opens it with to find Louis looking at himself in the mirror with a grin on his face.
“You really want the pomp and circumstance, to lord it over our heads, and tell people that they’re dead to you and break people? Then do it to me and do it to Mike. But don’t you dare bring Donna into this,” Harvey says as his fingers clench into a fist at his side. Although Jessica had made Louis sign the partnership agreement with the small addendum that he is also a co-conspirator, the message for them to start anew didn’t quite reach Louis yet.
Louis turned and silently questioned Harvey, grin still apparent.
“Before this whole episode that you’ve made this small thing to be, Donna went to Jessica and almost got herself fired asking if you could help with Forstman and if Jessica would allow you to stay since she’s let me stay and let Donna come back,” Harvey confessed. “She went to bat for you when no one else would. And, when I was supposed to fire you, she came with me to be there to support you because she knows this place is all you have.”
Louis looked down in shame for the tiniest moment, but his ego was so overinflated at this point that Harvey was going to have to do a lot more confessing before it was over.
“She has only ever been your goddamn friend, Louis,” Harvey says in a way that’s quiet but cutting. “She gives a shit about you, Louis. Whenever you fuck up, she is always ready to defend you. And, this is how you treat her?”
“Why would I trust anything you say?” Louis spits back with just as much bite but not enough venom as Harvey’s own voice holds.
He looks at Harvey and steeples his fingers in front of himself.
“How do I know I can ever trust either of you? She may have you wrapped around her finger and be lying to you, too,” he reminds the man in front of him. “I know you slept together. She just told me as a part of her penance.”
Harvey worked his jaw for a moment, focusing on not beating the shit out of Louis for that comment.
“For the past three days, she’s gone home and cried or felt like shit, and sometimes both,” Harvey says quietly. He’s unsure if Donna would want Louis knowing this, but it’s all in the name of protecting the weird friendship Donna and Louis have undertaken the last thirteen years. “What was it you said to me a year and a half ago? What just happened to that beautiful woman in there, that’s on you, not me. Well, this time, it is on you. It’s on you because you can’t goddamn see all she’s ever done is defend you and the friendship she values with you. To me. To Jessica. And to any number of people who question us as a firm.”
Louis’s jaw twitches. He swallows a lump in his throat.
“After you left to go and lord it over Mike, Jessica told me that you threatened to go to the police,” Harvey recalled as he stepped closer and used his height to intimidate the shorter man. “Of course Mike, Jessica, and I would have done time. Jessica and I would have our licenses stripped. Donna and Rachel may have also gone to prison depending who the ADA or DA was and if they had a grudge. And, you know what, the thought of Donna going to prison made me want to drop to my knees.”
Louis opened his mouth to speak, but Harvey poked his chest with a finger to back him up.
“She’s put me and my career first for the past fifteen years, and her loyalty to me is not to be mistaken for a fake friendship with you,” Harvey reminds him. “She told you she was sorry and she meant it. It wasn’t her tale to tell, you goddamn asshole.”
He can see Louis’s ego lessening a little. More to a manageable level. Still too much but enough to make him hold up a mirror to himself.
“I’ve taken your shitty attitude, and now we have you on the ropes, so you better cut the shit, Louis,” Harvey reminds him.
Louis opens up his mouth to speak, and Harvey holds up a finger, wordlessly telling him that he’s not finished.
“So, I swear to god, Louis, if you ever threaten her, make her cry, or do shady shit to her again, I will beat the shit out of you,” Harvey warned. “And, until you figure your shit out and realize she’s your friend, and apologise and mean it, stay the hell away from Donna.”
Harvey works his jaw as he stands and looks at Louis, making sure the man knows he’s not fucking around and Louis dips his chin, acknowledging his understanding.
She’s leaning against the edge of his window where she had been three days ago, playing with the baseball he usually keeps on his desk. She’s worried the stitching a million times over when she looks up and finds him leaning against the open door of his office.
“Hey,” she whispers with a small smile.
“Hey,” he echoes her greeting and tone.
She looks him over, and her head tilts with curiosity and knowledge despite the fact he didn’t tell her what he was going to do.
“You saw Louis, didn’t you?” Donna says with a knowing raise to her brows as he comes closer and takes the baseball from her hands.
“What can I say, he brings out the best in me,” Harvey shrugs and his chin dips to watch his fingers move to the stitching as if he was going to pitch a fastball.
She tilts her head and leans in, catching his eyes with her own, and he brings his chin up. They have a wordless conversation where his gaze confesses what he’s done.
“You’re so goddamn emotional,” she laughs breathily, and she steps away from her seat at the window. “While sweet, don’t do that again because we should be taking Jessica’s advice to heart.”
“What, fighting like hell to protect it?” Harvey asks as he’s heard a few things from Jessica the past few days.
She shakes her head and hides a smirk. She invades his space, her fingers run under the lapels of his jacket, and she tucks herself closer. Or, maybe she tugged him a little closer. Either way, she’s up in his space, and he watches her eyes search him for a moment. And then two.
And then she’s slowly leaning in and its long enough for him to either break contact or go full force, and he chooses a delicate version of the latter.
It’s soft and unhurried. Donna’s lips are full and sweet and bright, and he swears there’s a hint of lip stain that sort of changes the entire taste of her as his teeth graze her lips in a brief exchange that’s entirely too short in his opinion. He leans into her as her fingers tighten in his lapels and she leans up and into him. She stops it slowly. He’s left with his eyes closed and his brows knitted in concentration and he opens his eyes slowly to find her wide brown eyes searching his own again.
“Thank you, Harvey,” she whispers as her fingers loosen and drop and she smiles and drops eye contact as her chin moves downward. She licks her lips unconsciously as she feels him watching her and she steps to the side to go home for the night.
His fingers reach out and stop her as they grab her wrist and keeps her frozen to the spot.
“Come on,” he gestures to the coat rack that holds both their jackets with the hand that holds the baseball. “Let’s go home.”
“I don’t have spares at your condo,” Donna reminds him.
“We’re not coming into work tomorrow until later,” he says as he shakes her head. “Breakfast and an excursion to get me a few new suits and you a few new dresses are in order, I think.”
She laughs and he sees a genuine smile on her face for the first time in three days and he thinks they’re moving in the right direction for once.
He props the baseball back on his desk, and he helps her into her coat and then shrugs on his. He waits for her to pack her bag and as she rounds her cubicle, his fingers touch her own. She brings their palms together as they walk down the expanse of the hallway and for the first time this week as they see the Litt on the wall at the elevator, it doesn’t bring a sense of dread of what’s next in either of them.