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It's been a long day, so. So. She tries that but it doesn't quite stick. Or, she could go with she heard incorrectly. Except the air is still thick with it. In fact, her living room is engulfed in the significance of his words. There is no avoiding it or excusing it or wrapping it up into something it isn't. There is an indent in the sofa from where he sat, warm dregs of pinot still linger in his glass and there is a heaviness to the air. There are no two ways about it. Something happened here.
She has heard the entry door ring out and she knows, by now, he is sitting in the back of his car halfway home. If she knows him by half, he'll have taken the fifteen minutes to his place to write off his sentiment as the cold rush of winning, a slip of the tongue. If she knows him by half, it will never be the same again.
She feels warm, for a start, odd considering the season, but she takes that to mean she lost the wager with her tears. It all bubbles up as it tends to do, inopportune and clustering for an examination. And she could, sure, take it all apart but that would mean unpacking the events of the entire day starting with the cold open of three to five years in prison. In prison. And after that was properly processed, she could move on to standing in a courtroom, facing Harvey face off with the ADA and wondering if in all the years they had worked together if he had ever thought of her as more than a Secretary. If he had ever seen this situation as more than a nuisance, a situation that would render him without a Secretary that knew the ins and outs of his entire client repertoire. And after the dust had settled there, then perhaps she could wonder about the fact that he had come to her apartment, her favourite wine in hand and said, lets celebrate.
And he had sat down on her couch and he had talked, menially, maddeningly about everything and anything except what had actually occurred that day. A gesture so innocuous it lost its meaning in the eyes of anyone else but to her, to Donna, this was everything. Because Harvey never knew when to stop grinding a nail and yet he'd taken the win with grace. With, if she'd been less attuned to his lapses of it, dare she say it: sensitivity.
But Donna could not let it escape her notice, could not let him think it had escaped her notice when she'd spent eleven years proving to him that nothing escaped her notice. And so she had thanked him. Because in equal parts she was grateful and she was ashamed that it had gotten to this moment. But retroactively, she thinks everything has a purpose and the purpose was standing on her doorstop saying-
But, she can't quite, not yet, she's not-,
It takes her forty five minutes to coax herself out of bed and almost as long to convince herself it wasn't all a dream. But she is wound up so goddamn tight it can't possibly have been a hallucination. Her stomach rolls in on itself the moment the instant replay begins, as if she didn't spend half the night mulling over the way he stood, the moment he hesitated, the fact that he didn't seem surprised at all by the sentiment, rather almost as if he was erring on regretful. As if, you know I love you wasn't the momentous declaration but simply an afterthought, a 'Donna, didn't you know I would've done it all over and over?' Donna, didn't you see? Donna, how could you miss this?'
And to that, perhaps the most disturbing of all that had occurred. How had she missed this?
Its easy to place the blame firmly and squarely on the shoulders of denial but she isn't one to humour personal condescension. It was unexpected because it was a surprise. Right? It wasn't even three months gone since she'd stood in front of him and told him to get his shit together with Scottie. And he had, albeit in a stereotypically Harvey way. But still, Harvey had made his play. And when she had told him, point blank, that it wasn't up to her to decide what was going to make him happy he had chosen to go after Scottie.
He had chosen Dana.
And yet, and yet, he had done nothing but fight for her yesterday. He had dropped the suit, disregarded the families of those victims, ignored Mike, skirted the law (again,) for her. For her. And why? For love? How was it then that after all these years she had missed the most crucial thing of all?
How was it that after telling him, no- informing him that if anyone was going to fall in love with anyone it would be him with her, that after forcing him to grow up, to make the right choices, of learning his tells like she was part of her very self, after all that. After all that he could surprise her.
And perhaps that was what made his admission all the more incomprehensible.
Harvey Specter had surprised her.
Pearson Specter Litt hums like every other Wednesday morning. Two paralegals she vaguely remembers stop her in the copy room to ask her if they can meet Harvey, again and find their inept kiss-assing rejected, again. Norma stops by for a chat like she does every week, a ritual made only slightly less arduous by the fact that Norma has updated her repertoire of stories to include last night's phone call from Louis informing her that he would die, yes die, if she was to ever take another day off again and excuse you, but when is his next mudding appointment? Rachel finds herself at her desk just before eleven to ask if she'd like a coffee. It's like any other day.
If her heart is in her goddamn throat because Harvey is still out on a deposition until after lunch and his office is conspicuously empty and he is irritatingly unconfrontable, then so what? It's not like anyone can tell that her nerves are beginning to emit static electricity and her stomach is clenching every single time the elevator bell rings. Her muscles are coiled so tight she thinks she's going to develop carpal tunnel from the anxiety she feels.
It is so incredibly annoying because it is so incredibly innocuous. Harvey said you know I love you and had the audacity to tilt his head as if, 'how do you not know, Donna' and he was right, the smug bastard. How had she not known?
How had she allowed it to escape her notice that he was in love with her? But the thought, of course, comes unbidden: what if he didn't mean it like that. She takes a moment to give it a little room, to let that-
'Donna, where's Mike?'
And like that she's back to tense, jittery hands and reevaluating her entire goddamn life and Harvey, just-
'He's uh,' she takes a breath and looks up at him and he's standing at the corner of her desk in a grey suit, white shirt, his tie is immaculate but she considers how intentionally he would've intentionally put himself together in this, to give her as little ammunition as possible, surely, and he is staring at her with carefully masked nonchalance, really, and truly but at this point she thinks it might be wilful ignorance to the significance of his-
'Donna?'
And she tries not to smile when his hands clench into fists but she knows that move and she can read that move and it's a lot of bravado considering how her morning has gone but she takes it and she-
'Library, but, no, we're going to-'
He gives her a look, has the audacity to actually feign surprise that she was going to ask him about it and she raises an eyebrow. He doesn't even blink just turns on his heel and starts toward the law library.
The bastard.
Anger, however, is good for her in context. Donna has clear headedness. Donna has the benefit of time to strategise now that he's disappeared again. There are only so many meetings and appointments he can schedule for himself before he remembers he hasn't picked up the phone and directly called a client in over a decade and has to retreat back to his office.
And right on schedule, a drawn-out meet with Mike and a late lunch have him in the office at two pm. She follows him into his office and he's resigned to it, she can see.
'Donna,' he greets and she smizes, unsurprised at the cool tone.
If he was going to be dismissive, he shouldn't have gone around telling people he loved them and then leaving without so much as a by-you-leave. It was common courtesy to leave I Love Yous in convenient places like post-coitally or after a prolifically intimate moment not just like that before turning to leave. Donna had heard I Love Yous enough times to know to there were rules about those sorts of things. Rules, sure, that she had never really appreciated before, but this is, it's, different.
'You know why I'm here,' she says, closing the door behind her. She hesitates a moment, leaning back against the handle before she pushes off. She can't bear the thought of stalling this any longer than necessary. She is not a coward. She is not. She is not.
Harvey sinks into his chair and she thinks he hesitates on whether to play dumb or cut the chase. She's almost opened her mouth to call his bluff when he says, 'And?' and she's so grateful, grateful to her very core that he respects her enough to talk about it.
'You ran off before I had a chance to ask,' she says and she tries to gauge his reaction but he just nods slowly.
'I thought I'd give you-' and he hesitates here and looks up at her before he swallows, '-time.'
Donna blinks because that's not? wait, how is it? Every ounce of bravado she can possibly muster melts right through her into the floor. Coward, who? She frowns and Harvey gets up immediately, looking apologetic. He wanted to give her time. Time. Time, given in increments, was used to process things. To come to terms with things that were once unknown. Time was given, when in tandem with an admission of love, to people in denial. She wasn't-
She couldn't-
Excuse me?
'You knew,' he says, quietly in explanation, 'you knew.'
To insist, as he is, that somehow she had been in denial is stupefying. She tries not to shake her head in disbelief. This was a recent change for him! He hadn't loved her for almost a decade like she had, he hadn't given up relationships and commitments and anniversaries and occasions for quiet support and gratitude in morsels.
'I-'
But he silences her with a look, quiet and yet insistent, he looks guiltily down at his desk and sighs, 'look I-.. it's not.. it doesn't have to be.'
Donna can't help but feel like she is still missing something, 'so you.. meant it?'
Harvey makes a face, 'Donna.'
'No, don't.. don't Donna me. Since when.'
Harvey frowns, 'Donna.'
'No, I want to- I need to. You can't just say these things and then-'
'Donna, it's always-'
And she can't help it, doesn't matter that he looks so hopeful in that moment, it barely registers in her anger. Always been what? You? What bullshit. She had to wade through the women, all the women when he hadn't so much as touched her in seven years. He couldn't have been in love with her all this time. Then what was the twist? Why all the waiting? What was the point of it all if he hadn't been in denial?
'No, Harvey you can't just... '
He pulls away from the desk and steps around it, hesitating at its side. He watches her, for permission or for insight she wouldn't know, and says, 'I was trying to respect..' he tilts his head, looking ever so slightly annoyed, the picture of boyish arrogance, 'your rules.'
She splutters inwardly, her rules? 'You never so much as hinted,' she whispers and there is little of the venom she feels, almost unsure of the words as she says them. Because weren't there signs? Hadn't he pressed her after the mock trial about her motivations for leaving her boyfriend at the time. Hadn't he pushed her to admit Dana bothered him because she had wanted him to prove he loved her by fighting for her after Tanner came after her? Hadn't he dropped everything to come to her show, just because, just because it was hers?
But at the same time, she reasons that those moments, unassimilated are meaningless. Their unified meaning, sure, offers some credence to his words but alone? Alone they read like the machinations of an old friend. A close friend, sure, but a friend nonetheless. No, there is something else here. She cannot accept that she has misjudged him for so long. Her very foundation, her very core rests on an unquestioned, untarnished second sense for reading people. It is not vanity, it is tested.
'Since when,' she presses, short this time.
Harvey clenches his jaw and it takes everything not to repeat herself as she watches him think. He wets his lips and unconsciously she digs her nails into her skirt.
'After Tanner.'
Donna stares at him. Every single speck of dust is visible in the air as she lets out a soft, 'oh god.' The office blurs at the edges even as uncomprehensibly the specs of matter in the air clarify before her eyes. She can barely see him, there is just so much noise in the air, it doesn't even make sense except, except, she knows, she knows this much: she cannot possibly cry and so, she pulls it all together, starts at her fingertips and breathes through her nose until the room stops blurring at the edges, until her heart stops hammering so loud she can barely hear herself think, can barely render reality into intelligible motives.
And suddenly he is too close, descending upon her looking apologetic, 'I didn't.. I didn't know but I did. And then today-'
But for her, the conversation is myopic. Fragments of conversations, minutes spent together, everything comes crashing onto her at the same time. Heat swells within her, she feels every fibre of her being realign itself against the revelation that is this news. Since that.
'All this time,' she whispers and she doesn't know but she thinks she's forgotten how to breathe. She tries to remember how to make words and ask the questions she needs to ask to understand and comprehend. That he could've kept something this big from her, all this time.
'Like I said-' but she's not listening. She is barely capable of continuing to make the necessary automated motions to keep herself standing. This is.. not what she expected.
How she got to the bathroom is a blank but she finds herself in front of the mirror, whole minutes after she stopped there. Her face is blotchy, her pupils pin pricks and she still has a slightly awed expression on her face.
Not, Donna I just figured out I loved you. Not, Donna I've been in denial all this time. Not, Donna I love you like I love Mike or this job or Jessica.
But, I've been in love with you since I lost you the first time.
'Oh god,' she says and then to herself, again, 'oh god.'
The door bursts open and she turns as if in slow motion to stare at the incomer. The woman, a client perhaps, doesn't even register her gaze and disappears into the last stall. Donna takes a steadying breath but it does little to assuage the overwhelming feeling of panic. Panic that she had missed something so crucial, that the pride she had taken in knowing him, in doing what was right for him was really nothing more than circus tricks. She had known nothing.
Which left the more relevant question of, how to reply?
It had taken her months to bury the feelings she'd had for him following their stint at the District Attorney's office. And even then, years later, he would do something and she'd feel it all over again. That aching, burning sensation of unrequited love. But she had loved working for him, loved working at the firm and she had known, thought that he wasn't interested in her. And so, she had buried the sensation alongside it's angstier counterparts right alongside the other time and moved on.
And she had made herself, forced herself to do the things she needed to do for him. Zoe made him happy? Dana made him happy? The string of women he had made her liaise with made him happy? Then so be it. But had she simply been affirming her disinterest to him? Had she simply been unknowingly orchestrating her own rejections? Had she misinterpreted everything?
She had to make do with what she knew to start, which was that he was in love with her and that at one point, in the not so distant past, she had been in love with him. The latter, of course, was only one relapse to another. The question of how to reply, of course, came down to how she felt now. And that wasn't so clear cut.
Donna had spent so much time burning and burying and exorcising those feelings from her system that it was going to take time to remember what it felt like. She had honed indifference, schooled butterflies and reigned over lust for so long that it all felt a little surreal.
That she cared for Harvey, perhaps more than your average legal secretary, was true. That she loved him?
When she strides into his office over an hour later, he looks equal parts relieved and concerned.
'Okay,' she says, and sits in front of his desk, knees together, back straight. Battle bound, 'okay.'
He looks momentarily amused but quashes it with confusion, 'okay..' he repeats.
'Explain,' she says.
Harvey eyes her for a long moment, 'Specifically?'
Donna fiddles with the hem on her skirt, smoothing the material down, trying to think of where to start. But where to start is now a bottomless chasm of misinterpretations and missed innuendos and who is she now if not the Donna who knows everything?
'Why didn't you let me know?' and she is specific here, not tell me because she can see now, perhaps, perhaps that he did tell her in one way or another. But he hadn't shown her, not really, not obviously and so, so, that is her first request.
Harvey nods in what could be a concession to her obliviousness or an understanding that she didn't know him as well as she thought he did. Both sting in equal measure.
'You didn't-' he huffs and starts again, 'I didn't want to force anything, or even- to presume.'
She swallows and nods, indicating for him to continue.
He looks uncomfortably sincere when he says, 'I didn't think you- well. You know.'
'You didn't think I loved you back,' for her benefit, truly, because she doesn't trust herself to make up his half-sentences anymore.
She closes her eyes against his nod and then, 'Harvey, you didn't make it obvious,' and immediately she hates herself for it because how cruel is that.
He clasps his hands together on the desk and looks aghast, 'that's not fair, Donna. That's not fair at all.'
And christ, fairness was the furthest thing from her mind but she tries to look apologetic because that street is walked in both directions.
'What you did for Scottie-' she starts, because she has to make him understand that she thought Dana was the one. That she'd thought Zoe was the one. That she had only done what she had thought was what he wanted, in the absence of wanting her. Needing her as more than just her secretary.
'If I couldn't have you-'
And god, of all the things he could've said. Of all the things, on all the days, he had to say the one thing that she had repeated to herself like a benediction to her choices. If I couldn't have you, the least I could do was make you happy with someone else, no? All the breath pours out of her, rainwater down an open drain. She tries not to give it all away, the shock and the hurt. All that time wasted. All that goddamn time wasted. 'Harvey..' she breathes, wondering how two people could blindly play the same hand over and over again and not realise they were holding the same goddamn cards.
'It's all out now,' he says, overly raw to be sardonic.
Donna tries to buffer him some, tries to offer a small concession of her understanding in the form of a contrite smile.
'Look Donna,' he starts quickly, to cover the moment, 'this isn't- I'm not going to. Look, if you don't-'
Donna could lie and say it back. Three words, eight letters. She's lied her way through it before, with enough sincerity and a touch of hesitance, she'd make it an artful performance but she just can't. No matter how much it would please, she just can't say anything. Neither to agree nor reject, she just sort of stares at him in confusion.
'I just can't lose you,' he says, slowly as if she'd miss it any other way. 'Please.'
She had not been the one to leave, he had. He had hesitated a long while after Mike had walked in announcing a walk-in meeting with their client, almost rudely unaware of the conversation prior, before slowly walking from the room. She could lie and say she hadn't noticed the cruel weight she'd left on him, her silence neither comforting nor cruel, just.. silence.
But what could she say when her mouth felt drier than all a Manhattan summer despite the fact that there was so much to say. There was the need to affirm certainty. She needed him too, didn't he know that? Didn't he know that was why she had stayed and stayed and stayed and stayed? There was no losing you, not for all the mistimed declarations of love. That much she knew. She knew that. And yet.
And yet, at that crucial moment, she had been mute.
Because, saying that was something Donna would say. The Donna. Titular Donna. Name and title. Glory and clout all rolled into one. It was not something she could muster at this time, not when the very foundation of the most important relationship in her life had been altered. This was not a small change, this was monumental.
Did he not see? Did he not realise?
It was not just that he loved her. It was that he had loved and that she had not noticed.
And perhaps there was pride involved, probably more vanity than she was humble enough to admit but it was true. She had rested herself chiefly on this ability, and this one alone. When everything was said and done, she was just a legal secretary. But insight was power and insight she had had in bounds. Which left her overwhelmingly uncertain of everything.
'I need time,' she says, before he can shut the door of his office. By the time he has walked over to her desk, she has left the seat in front and straightens it until it aligns with its partner.
'Donna-'
'Harvey, please wait,' she cuts off, and gathers herself and remembers to breathe and looks at him, 'I am never going to leave.'
He looks apologetic, as if that was overstepping the bounds, being overly vulnerable and she frowns, 'short of prison-'
And Harvey winces, so she offers a half-laugh, too small and soft, a gesture, 'I'm not going anywhere.'
But he just shakes his head, 'but you don't.. you don't feel the same way.'
'No,' she starts and his face falls, she doesn't even think he can help it and she feels idiotic for her semantic choice.
'Harvey,' she huffs and takes a step towards his desk, 'I didn't know,' she admits and that still feels heavy.
'I didn't know how you felt. If I'd known.. or thought..' and takes a steadying breath because this is not the roulette of blame. She feels so stupid for wanting to say, 'I've forgotten how to love you,' but, that's not exactly.
He looks so quietly sad, like open disappointment would be some sort of insult to her and she doesn't think she's ever realised how much he's kept from her, because of her, in respect of her. It reads despondently because there is no sense of victimisation. She almost wants to say thank you.
'Harvey-, wait,' she insists, 'it's not that I don't-' love, but it's still so raw, so new, she can't quite-, 'I didn't know.'
She waits for the look of surprise but he just looks hopeful, 'okay.'
Donna nods, 'it's going to take me a while.'
She tries to articulate to him the enormity of what she's saying. It's not just 'its going to take me a while' to love you. Donna knows that buried is not gone and that she has always been beholden to her love for him. It is why she is here, still, rather than somewhere else. But it will take time for it to come back, for her to remember how to slot the love in between the respect and the care and the dependability. She'll find a place for it, sure. But it is also going to take her time to remember who she is. She trusts Harvey. She trusts Harvey with her life. She trusts Harvey to know himself with something like this. With love. It is no small feat for him to admit this to her and she trusts he said it with intention. What she needs to reconcile is herself. To take a moment to recalibrate with the input of a change in their dynamic as monumental as this. But she will.
So when he takes a step towards her and smiles, smiles!, like he got it without her having to explain, she thinks that no matter how long it takes, 'I'll get there.'
'I know.'
'I'll get there,' she says, again, more confident, a little rueful.
'I'll wait.'