Work Text:
Harvey sits at his kitchen counter with his coffee– two shots of vanilla from the new syrup bottle that mysteriously migrated into his cabinet two nights back– and he scans his inbox. He’s got a long email from Samantha that’s ostensibly about the closing details of the Panasonic case, though she’s really just running a victory lap. He’s CC’ed on a thread between Louis and Katrina, volleying thoughts on the new code of conduct that Harvey hasn’t read yet and likely never will. He’s got one from Mike Ross, who’s back in town to sue one of Harvey’s clients for defrauding their customers.
Harvey hears her heels before he sees her, and at once he’s out of his seat to bring Donna a coffee cup of her own, prepared with skim, sugar and whipped cream on the top.
“You’re making me coffee?”
“I’ve been told I’m good at it,” he preens.
“Obviously, you use my recipes,” she says, accepting her cup with a sparkle in her eyes. “But the fact remains you want something.”
“A coffee can’t just be coffee with us?”
“Come on, Harvey, spit it out.”
She hits him with a perfect look of saucy mock-scolding that steals his breath. God, she’s just like Ricky Garfield’s mom.
“Just to be clear, since I obviously failed last night,” he says before trailing off, once again uncertain of his phrasing.
Yet she’s certain of precisely where their story is heading. It’s so clear in the way her eyes brighten, even as she lets out a meek “yes?”
“One week of dating’s a little fast for a proposal, don’t you think?”
The question hangs in a taut, watchful silence. Donna breaks it, setting her cup down half-drunk with a jarring clink.
“Donna–”
“No–” she raises both hands, both in warning and self-defense– “I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to. I just don’t get why you’re still wasting time.”
“I’m committed to you,” he says. Against his volition, his voice grows louder. “Why do I need a ring to show you that?”
“No, don’t pin this on me–”
“But if two people are committed to each other,” he insists, “why bother with a contract?”
“But if you’re committed to me,” she shoots right back, “why are you afraid of a contract?”
The silence strikes again.
“I’m telling you I’m going to be with you, you’re going to get your fairytale,” he at last says. “Isn’t that good enough?”
“Fairytale.” She recoils at that word. It was laced with an edge even Harvey can’t quite explain, and her eyes glaze over with tears Harvey never meant to put there. Still she snatches back her composure as quickly as she can, lifting her chin and swallowing hard. Harvey reads a thousand questions flickering across her face.
Straining to conjure a smile, Donna answers, “I suppose it’ll have to be.”
“Harvey Reginald Specter!” Louis sweeps into Harvey’s office with his nose in the air. Harvey can almost hear the trumpets announcing his entrance. “You’ve committed an act of unpardonable bad faith, so explain yourself right the hell now before I defenestrate you.”
“Excuse me?”
“You reneged on a proposal to Donna.”
“Technically, I never actually proposed in the first place, she just–”
“Happens to be the best thing that’s ever happened to you?” Louis cuts in. “The most precious woman to ever grace your life? My god, if I ever had the slightest shot with her I would have lived in her heart and died in her lap, and you’re just throwing that away?”
“She’s not going to quit seeing me just because of this,” Harvey fights back, yet his retort lacks conviction.
“You’re toying with her heartstrings,” Louis at once warns, his theatrical tendencies in full bloom. “And I cannot imagine why you’d ever play with her thus unless . . . Oh, you sly dog, you.”
“What?” Harvey says, even warier than before.
“I see what you’re doing.” Louis rubs his hands together, a mastermind unraveling his rival’s whole plan. “You’re popping the balloon now so you can buy time and do a really good job of proposing. I mean, she deserves the drama–”
“Louis.”
“Diamond rings, doves, a hot-air balloon in Central Park–”
“Louis?”
“Oh, oh, I’ll donate my box seat if you just let me know, it’s the perfect setting to kick off Donna’s happy ending–”
“Louis!”
“What?” Louis pauses, peeved at having his monologue interrupted.
“I wouldn’t yank her chain like that,” Harvey snaps, scowling at the very idea. “I didn’t even kiss her until I was sure there was no other road forward for me.”
“Oh,” he says, suddenly sounding quite small. “Then . . . why did you walk back the proposal?”
“Technically I didn’t . . .” He trails off with a sigh. “Because when I think of my life story, marriage doesn’t factor into it. It hasn’t in years.” Harvey shifts, suddenly awkward on his feet, unsure of exactly what to do with himself. “Why do you even care?”
Louis scoffs. “How can you question my investment in Donna’s happiness?”
“That’s not what I mean, it’s just that you’re raising a child with Sheila without marriage. I didn’t think it matters to you either.”
“But it matters to Donna.” After a moment Louis gives a sigh of his own, turning to look out the windows to the skyline. “You’re no picnic to work with, you know that?”
“I’ve been told,” he says dryly.
“And I’m just saying after all the crap you put her through, she deserves a wedding.”
“Donna deserves a wedding,” Harvey repeats, glancing down at his shoes.
“At the very least,” Louis continues. He grows louder, an animated grin spreading wide across his face: “For what she’s done for you, Donna deserves the big white wedding. I’d throw in a couple war medals if you’ve got them.”
Harvey nods, eyes softening as he considers the view out his windows.
“She said I think I’m better than her,” he muses, voice soft too. Her father had rightly accused Harvey of prioritizing himself and his interests, particularly Mike Ross, over her wellbeing. “If I don’t want her to leave I have to . . . put her first.”
“You’re getting it,” Louis says in an encouraging tone. “You just have to learn to adapt and, and compromise!”
Harvey meets his grin with a wry smirk of his own. “I do specialize in settlements, don’t I?”
Harvey rearranges his schedule and spends most of the day out on the town, tending to a deal that’s hit an unexpected roadblock. He’s driving back to the office past sunset when his mom calls.
“Harvey?”
“Is something wrong?”
“No, of course not!” Her voice comes through over the speakerphone, distorted yet joyful. “But I just got our church’s calendar, in case you want to hold the ceremony in Boston. If she’s got folks in New England too then–”
“Mom,” he interrupts, a few decibels too loud. “Don’t get too far into the planning yet.”
“Oh, does Donna want to do it all herself?”
“Probably but . . .” He stumbles for a moment. “But more to the point, I called it off this morning.”
“. . . But you said you wanted to be with her forever. That she’s the one.”
“I did say that.”
“Then what’s the issue?”
“You and dad also believed in love at first sight.”
There’s silence, followed by a long tinny exhale.
“I thought we were over all that,” she says with the slightest note of warning.
“It’s not exactly the same scenario, but–”
“Harvey, you can’t keep clinging to the same old hang-ups–”
“I gave up on all that!”
“Is that so?”
“Would you like proof?”
“If you’ve got it.”
Harvey waits a few moments before he admits, “Donna was seeing someone else, when we got together. She says they ended it right before we began, but . . . I don’t know. I didn’t know that at the time, and I didn’t care.”
The silence stretches on until at last Lily remarks, “That sounds like progress.”
Harvey grunts. “We’re not a copy of you and Dad, I know she’ll never cheat on me. But in the week we’ve been together? We haven’t made it a day without an argument.”
“What, you thought you’d stop being yourself the second you fell for a girl? Disagreements are only natural, honey,” she says in a soothing tone, the same one he remembers from when he would come home sick from school. “You’ve never heard of bickering like an old married couple?”
“Sure, but is that honestly the best start for a marriage?”
“Well, let’s be honest then.” She shifts to a no-nonsense tone that still stings from childhood lectures. “You’ve let what happened with your father define you for a long time. You’ve spent years twisting yourself into knots over whatever you think was done to you. It is well past time for you to grow up and start a home.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, Harvey. And I love you, you know I do, but you can be harsh, and stubborn as hell, and impossible to reason with, so . . .”
“So I’m lucky she loves me,” he finishes, voice nearly cracking low in his throat.
“You’re blessed by the Almighty himself,” Lily corrects. He joins her in a hearty laugh.
“What are you doing here?”
When Harvey enters his apartment that night, he finds Mike Ross sitting by the counter, nursing a glass of Macallan.
“Had to fly out early,” Mike says. “The exact reason’s privileged, but I figured I’d either stay here or . . . at Rick Sorkin’s.”
Their eyes meet as the inside joke immediately links them again. Harvey laughs first, eyes regaining an old spark.
“I can’t believe you committed fraud,” Mike chuckles with a shake of his head, “just to keep the apartment open for me and Rachel.”
“Just in case you want to come back to New York,” Harvey replies affably as he sets down his things. He likes that apartment– though smaller than his bachelor pad, it’s long felt more like a home to him. “I even left your damn bicycle art up on the wall.”
“I appreciate that, but our firm’s been doing just fine,” Mike assures him.
“So it’s happy ever after in Seattle?” When Mike nods, Harvey gives a shrug. “Then I’d better actually find a tenant, huh.”
“It’s time for us all to move on,” he agrees with unflagging cheer.
Harvey doesn’t speak for a moment, simply moving to the inner archway and scanning the rest of the apartment.
“Donna’s not home,” Mike supplies. “I thought she would be, given the news.”
“Which news?”
Mike frowns at him, visibly puzzled. “That you got together.” He tilts his head. “Did I miss something? Are there already wedding bells?”
When Harvey meets his stare, his eyes widen.
“Wow. That’s . . . faster than I expected.”
“It’s not fully finalized,” Harvey intones.
“What’s holding you back?”
“How do you know I’m the problem?” Mike gives him a look, and he snorts. “I have a couple different . . . hang-ups, you could say.” He pauses again to select his words with care. “I’ve seen marriages fall apart, and in this day and age plenty of couples do just fine without a ring. We’re unusually unlikely to cheat as it is, so I don’t see why she wants it so badly.”
Mike leans back in his chair and takes a thoughtful sip of his– technically Harvey’s– scotch. “I’ve wondered about that. Before I proposed to Rachel, I was so desperate to get married, but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly why.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Mike nods. “But then it happened, and . . . There is a power in that vow. In saying that it’ll take death to do us part. I can’t quantify it, but it’s added a backstop to all our fights, it’s added a foundation to build a home. There’s something ineffably comforting in knowing that she won’t leave me, and I won’t leave her.”
“Never?”
Mike downs the last of his scotch, leaving only the ice. “Never.”
Harvey glances around his apartment, sterile and dark and so damn empty. Then he picks up his wallet again and retrieves his coat.
“Where are you going?”
Harvey looks at him for a long while. When he speaks, his voice is soft, solemn.
“To buy Donna a diamond ring.”