Notes: So, this is the scene. THE Scene. My take...
It had taken two days to corner him.
Two days and the steadily mounting annoyance of the fact.
He'd suddenly gotten very good at avoiding her...
"Harvey." She started, closing the door. "We need to talk. Now."
"Not now, Donna." He replied, sighing into his dimly lit office
"No, it's gonna be right now. You've ignored me for two days."
He looked up then, a heaviness on his face.
"Donna, I really don't feel like talking." He said quietly, looking vacantly at her.
She stepped forward, that adrenaline giving her just the right amount of momentum she needed.
"Harvey, the other night, you came to my apartment, and you were actually honest with me. And for the first time…you let your guard down. And then you ran away, but not before you told me that you love me." She gestured, trying to stop her voice from peeling at the remembrance of such a thing.
"Donna…" he objected instantly, that heavy frown of his deepening all the more.
"You can't just tell me you love me and then leave me there like that without...talking about it." She frowned, almost matching his expression.
"There's nothing to talk about." He shrugged, looking back to his paperwork.
"Harvey…you love me!" She repeated, the weight of the words peeling out of her in a held gasp. She still couldn't fathom the idea of such a thing.
"So?" he said, an aggression about him then, his defences working on overtime.
"So…I didn't know!" She said, her voice raising as her eyes widenedand glazed at the fact.
"Donna…" He looked at her, softer then, the inperceptible doubt etching his face until her expression remained unchanged, giving him the assuredness he needed.
"Well…now you do." He said, distaste mixing on the sharp planes of his face.
"How long?" She demanded the answer.
"A...while." He said reluctantly.
"How long, Harvey?" She pushed then.
"What is this? The spanish inquisition?" He fired at her, aggitated then at her clearly pushing him.
"You're missing the point Harvey. You didn't even...ask me if I…"
She paused before the last word. She couldn't even say it.
She didn't even know how to ask or even answer that question.
Too long buried under a mountain of paperwork and good intentions...
His eyes lifted then, however masked. "Well…do you?" He asked her, the smallest of interest in his darkened gaze.
"Yes. I do." She nodded, her voice small. "And you would have found that out if you'd thought about someone other than yourself for five seconds!" She reeled off then, annoyance finding her tone.
"Donna…" He objected quietly then, his voice dangerously low. "I thought about nothing but you for three days straight." He said, the weight of it almost cutting her in half.
She knew she'd made that face again when he swallowed and sat back. "It still doesn't change the fact that…"
"We work together." She confirmed. She tried not to bore into his eyes the blunt intention of that infamous rule she'd made so long ago.
He missed the ironic, almost palling look on her face.
She swallowed, her hands sliding down the skirt of her maroon dress.
She had avoided this situation for a very long time. Too long, really.
"Louis needs an assistant." She said, the balsy in her giving her all she had left.
His face dropped in an instant, his hands dropping all the paperwork he'd been trying to distract himself with.
"Donna, I am not losing you to Louis." He said, the refusal of such a thing sharpening his features in that way that only Louis's name could invoke.
"Harvey. We have a chance here. A chance that could give us time to…figure things out. I don't have to leave the firm. We could trial it…one month."
"No." He refused, a spring back reflex.
"Harvey." She used his name like a demand then. Unyielding and focused in her eyes.
"Donna…" He said then, folding the file in front of him. "I need you."
"I know you do. But this is growing past work now. We both know that."
"What if i don't want to choose?" He fired at her.
"Then you have to be prepared to end this." She gestured between them. "Either you want work or…us." She told him. "I need a life Harvey. And last night I realised for the first time that we, whatever this is, that's what's stopping me from having one. From us having anything outside of," She sputtered, looking around them at the home they had made here as she gestured. "This!" She said, exasperated and spent. "Harvey…I'll never stop putting you first and you'll never let me go. So…its time for us to make a choice."
"Donna." He pleaded then, standing.
"Choose Harvey. Just make a choice. Either one." She said, turning on her heel.
Sorry Guys I had to! A~