Note: I wrote this AGES, months ago, and only after the Finale was I able to write the other half. Might write a Sequel to this, as their were certain moments that I didn't want to taint the flow.
Futures
He wonders about the future...sometimes. As the ebbs and flows of life play at them all, it creates tiny pockets of variations. Little instincts to turn his own course a little left, a little right. Occasionally his mind will veer off in a direction that is completely alien to him. Some days it just...stands still amidst the chaos.
He's late again.
She'll be calling him in five minutes if he doesn't make it in time, he thinks. Then he'll be 'the thing that held up the dinner at Thanksgiving'. Fabulous.
So he keeps driving, keeps his eyes focused on the almost empty roads.
He finally gets there, now forty minutes late, pulling into the driveway as cars line the streets.
When he opens the door, it's not who he expects.
It's probably the best buffer he's going to get all afternoon though, he thinks.
"Harvey. You're late." The owner of the voice glares with purpose.
He grins, shaking his head at the audacity of her boldness.
"You gonna let me in my own house, Donna?" He asks, a hint of gruffness about him as she lingers still, with the door open and a slightly wicked grin on her face.
"It depends. You're extremely late. I covered for you." She says pointedly. She's not about to let him get away with the fact.
He finds himself relax a little, smiling even.
"Thank you. Where's my wife?" He asks, kissing her briefly on the cheek.
"Entertaining Mike, would you believe. Dinner is five minutes away." She replies, holding the door open for him.
"You're helping, this time?" He asks, his eyebrows raising as he steps over the threshold.
"I forced her to let me do the turkey." She reveals, a hint of the kind of manipulation she is capable of. "Literally, forced."
"Well played," He admonishes, shaking his coat off against the slight drizzle outside, as he hangs it up next to the door.
When he walks into the lounge he's greeted to the view of his wife and his long-time mentee acting out some obscure movie to opposing teams of what looks like Rachel, Donna's husband Richard and Marcus and his wife Olivia, as their kids run around the dinner table, evidently high on caffeine and candy.
It's a Jungle, he realises, smirking.
It's a Family, he corrects in his head, faint reassurance of Donna's words over the many years.
His eyes zone on the little brunette in question, who's eyes zone back in on him in the distance.
"You're late!" She says, pointing the accusation at him mid-gesture. They share a look, eyes twinkling in the fraction of a second between actions.
"Not for charades, I see." He says, grinning as he clamps a hand down on his brother's shoulder, giving it a quick squeeze.
"You're in the doghouse, Brother." Markus says, a clear jest in his voice.
"She's been singing my praises, I gather?" He says, grinning back at Dana as she elbow's Mike in the ribs to distract him.
"I've heard some very interesting stories," His brother replies, grinning.
He has an idea that Thanksgiving will be good this year.
He's alone this Christmas eve.
It's somewhat...depressing, to say the least.
Mike has Rachel.
Donna has that investment banker of a useless boyfriend.
Jessica has a new husband,
Hell,
Even Louis has the abhorrent Sheila Sazs to warm the cockles of his supposed heart.
He has… a whiskey. And a now warm one at that.
It's not even that he's lonely. Moreover, he has a ton of people in his life. But it feels like he missed something somewhere in the back. A clue. A missing piece of evidence in his own life that he should have be acting on days ago. A missing voice mail or a to do list or...something.
It's...sobering. To say the least.
His mind lingers over long dark brown locks and a sharp gaze. That little smile at something he says.
Scottie…
In the strangeness of the moment, he finds his phone in his pocket.
So he dials, putting it on speaker phone, the amber courage filling his veins and spurring him on.
"Hello, Harvey?" A confused voice rings at the other end.
"Hey… hows it going?" He asks, trying at casual. A vowel skips in his throat as he tries to clear it.
"It's… its, Christmas Eve, Harvey." She says, the words blunt.
"Good observation." He counters, feeling the cold burn of her words.
"What do you want, Harvey?" She says, shooting straight from the hip.
"I...was just sitting here, and thought that perhaps...you weren't busy." He half-jokes.
"I'm...I'm with my family, Harvey. Are you not...with Marcus this Christmas?" He hears her struggle on the other end.
He forgets sometimes. How much she's in on. How much she knows.
"Tomorrow."
"Ah. Okay… and this is...what? Your last ditch effort for a booty call?"
"It's not like that," He frowns, immediately feeling like the asshole he used to be.
"Then what is it like, Harvey? You call me up, in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve for...what?"
The pressure of her words make him skip a beat. She always knew how to nail his emotions to the wall. Not even alcohol can drown out that haze of awkwardness from his aging bones.
"I…" He mumbles.
"Harvey...I'm with someone now." She says down the receiver.
It cuts, hard and deep and faster than he thought anything ever could.
"I...right. Well...have a good," He clears his throat at the silence that just fell into the room. "Have a good Christmas. You deserve it." He says. And she does. After everything she does deserve to be happy. Despite him.
"You too, Harvey. Merry Christmas." She says, very quietly for such a forthright woman. "I...I have to go."
"Okay." He says, nodding into the dark.
He hears the phone disconnect, the only light in the room dissipating into the air.
He wonders why he can never get the words out...
I love you, he thinks,
And thinks only of her.
It's been a week since they ended it.
He doesn't really know why. He's almost sure it has more to do with her than him.
He wonders idly why Donna wouldn't let him tell her, when she'd been so sure that Scottie wouldn't tell when he finally did.
Wonders if she had been wrong about his relationship all along.
And if she had been wrong about that, then...
His bed is colder, his evenings freer now. They are the facts, and they are indisputable.
He's not afraid to say he misses her. That he loved her. That he's a stupid asshole for getting himself into the mess with Mike and putting everyone around him in jeopardy, including her.
He forgets to ask Donna why she'd even let the kid in the room in the first place. But most likely, she had her reasons.
She has a reason for everything, after all.
He's standing outside, by the coffee cart and the mute coffee cart guy with his usual bagel and a coffee perched on the scratched counter top. Double shot and Pastrami this time.
Since Mike's departure he's taken such comfort in the little things, his little rituals pre-fraud. Something just to take the edge off.
He knows it's stupid but it's familiar. Comfortable. Reliable. He needs reliable, right now. Just for a little while.
He's in mid-bite of his pastrami and cream cheese bagel, eyeing his coffee when large dark curls bob beside him out of the corner of his eye.
His attention catches almost immediately, he almost drops his bagel as he turns to look at the brunette.
But it's not her.
Not her thick dark curls, or her sly smile or her piercing stare and petite curves.
Again, he wonders,
Just what the hell he's really doing with his life.
And the thought of her echoes through every wall in that building where his name sits in sad little gold letters.
He's not surprised when he goes to the bar and she's perched up against it, her dark raven-like curls and a little green dress.
It's only been a week, but he really doesn't care. It's been a long day and suddenly he's wide awake a the sight of her.
He watches as she laughs to the person she's sat opposite.
His stomach settles when he notices it's a woman sat opposite and not a man.
He knows he's being an asshole to evening think such a thing. She's single and beautiful and on the market. And he knows it's an impulsive decision when he lets his feet do the talking.
He readies his swagger, stalking slowly up to where her chair is, moving fluidly past people with drinks until he's no less than a foot away, that he can smell her perfume.
He's slightly shocked when she turns around to look up at him, all challenge and victory in her hazel eyes.
"Harvey," She says, her tone charting the outcome of the evening.
"Hey. Fancy seeing you around." He says, his eyebrows waggling slightly.
Her face falls then, as she scoots off of her chair, becoming even shorter as he backs away to give her the room.
He'd forgotten how beautiful she was. And she was...beautiful. Since that first day...
"Harvey," She chides at him, that blanket disappointment that is so typically characteristic of her. "Get that look out of your eye." She orders.
"I can't. I'm looking at you, kid." He says, his head lolling to one side. He can't help it.
"Harvey. We broke up." She says wearily.
"Scottie, I," He starts, mustering up the courage but she heads him off at the past. Her words were always quick.
"It's never going to work." She says, shrugging her shoulders and knitting her brows together. In the back of her eyes there's still a humour there.
"I miss you. And...I love you. What else is there?"
If she was taken aback then he'd never know. Instead, she merely sighs. "Only everything else."
"It was the only thing I ever kept from you." He says, referencing the past that inevitably broke them.
"You didn't keep it from Donna," She says then, that tell tale edge of frustration playing in her voice, scratching against her teeth and making her eyes smaller in seconds.
"She helped me hire him!" He says, losing his cool then as his arms flap out at each side then hang with a heaviness.
She's impossible.
He sighs then, knowing her stubbornness as he watches her fold her arms. "I miss you. Come home with me." He suggests; the words low in his throat as he leans in a little closer.
"You want to make this into a 'booty call'?"
"Maybe I just want you in my bed." He shrugs. "I can just cuddle, you know."
She smiles then, her eyes shining under the low lights. In that moment he swears that he can see her weighing up the odds of that scenario...
"I can't, Harvey." She replies finally, shaking her head minutely. "I'm sorry. I want to. But...I need some time. I can't do it any more."
He finds himself nodding, despite the sudden drop in his gut. She sees it in his expression immediately, her head tilting at him in disappointment, like she respects him less for feeling something in that moment and not concealing it.
"What do you expect me to say to that?" He finds himself asking, the frustration peeling out all over his words at her reaction.
"Nothing." She says, a smile sad and honest on her face.
He's at a loss. He's never felt like this before. He doesn't want to be a dick but he finds himself wandering back in the direction he came.
Victor-less. One deal he couldn't close.
"Harvey?" He hears her voice call. When he turns back around she's looking at him with a challenge and the faintest hint of a smile, just for him.
"See you around?" She asks, the hopefulness a cheeky and playful.
"You got my number." He says, the corners of his mouth tightening just enough to match hers.
He's resolute that they will indeed see each other again.
He has to see her again.
And he does.
Note: I don't know what came over me but that wicked Season 3 finale really got my brain going for these two. I've never shipped them before but it opened up a load of possibilities.