Beta'd since initial publish.
Author's notes: Not Sure where this came from, and playing with the two of them. It's not my normal, but this season is throwing up all sorts of ideas by it's sheer lack of inspiration alone! ;-)
Summary: This all started with a prompt for what happened to make Donna break up with Mitchell. (Post 6.08 but Pre 6.09)
Simplicity By Atheniandream
A Tuesday Night.
They had been re-going over Mike's case and the plan to get him out for over three hours now. All angles, game-plans, ideas and take out and scotch. Which inevitably led to coffee. And lots of it, too.
However, Donna's attention had only started to wane after the third interruption.
She sighs with disappointment, as the sharp light of her phone bleeds blue into the golden tinged darkness. She pushes the phone further into her bag, her face bending with a frustration.
The third repeat phone call in an hour. It's actually making her more tired now; the thought of calling him back after a fourth time.
"Who's not 'getting the message'?" Harvey's voice asks, directed from the chair opposite with that trademark drawl of his.
"No one." She shrugs pointedly, her face painting itself with a false blankness as she avoids his sudden interest. She notices his head loll to the side, that usual angle that his head leans towards when he's challenging her.
The length of silence draws her in like a moth to a flame...
She mimics him, until that press of his dark browns bend at her confidence. She swallows, rolling her own eyes for a moment, before meeting his waiting expression.
"Mitchell. We uh...we had a fight." She relents.
"Oh." He replies, the scar on his lip crinkling with the word.
Just as she feels a defence brimming in her gut, she notices his back straighten into a more upright posture, before he takes a sip of his drink.
She's always painted this gesture as his signal of morphing interest. Like he's figured something out, or he's suddenly paying attention; has found an angle to play or felt that wave of opportunity flood his veins. Yet, in the low light of his office it looks unusual, that he would make this kind of a movement, this kind of gesture in place of what she assumes would be a usually throwaway answer.
If she were honest with herself, with every passing day she's finding him harder to read, and it's starting to niggle at her, being so far away from that reason she can't yet put her finger on.
She holds her breath, a light expression balanced on her delicate features.
"Dump the Idiot." He throws at her, before she can think of a new subject. "He's not good enough for you anyway." He says.
"No one's good enough for me." She throws at him, huffing with that edge of humour in her voice as she raises her chin a little higher to accommodate the sentiment.
His eyes catch at her words, claiming her attention again. For a split second she thinks he's offering...something. Not a retort or a quip but a contrary opinion on the matter.
Some...new information.
Truth is, the possible information is not that new at all.
Her eyebrows raise instinctively, the coffee mug sliding along her lips as they settle into a confident cover of a line, a careful one that doesn't betray her ripe unease of the moment.
They've danced this little dance a lot lately.
Him, silent only to be drenched in unsaid words. Eyes watery, and subtext laden.
Her, tasting the palpable air with her honed senses, eyes wide and heart feeling exposed.
And yet, the growing handicap settling even further between them both.
This time,
It's her that makes the emotional break for it.
"It's late." She starts, her knees unfolding, giving her the propulsion to lean forward and place the empty cup on the coffee table between them, before reaching for the bag that rests by the leg of the sofa.
He stands slowly, a moment after she does, downing his own drink in one. "I'll take you."
"Harvey," The words fall out like a tired objection. "I'm a big girl. I think I can hail a cab," She reminds him matter of factly.
She's stopped pointing out that they shouldn't do things like that. He shouldn't pick her up in the morning and he shouldn't drop her home at night.
It's not who they are. But he does them anyway. He never tells her why and he never pushes past the initial effort.
She knows that now. And even though the pieces don't quite fit together, she isn't fighting for them to, either.
Not anymore.
"I know," He shrugs, a casual gesture considering the darker look in his eyes. "You really wanna waste fifty bucks, when you could get a ride for free?" He challenges, his hands sliding into his pockets with a rather fatherly tone about him.
But she can see it in his eyes.
Harvey Specter doesn't take 'no' for an answer.
It's a saintly virtue and a deathly sin all wrapped up in one contradictory, Tom Ford laden package of a man.
She sighs then, before rolling her eyes as she waits for him to grab his coat from the back of his chair.
Truth be told, she hasn't seen Ray in quite a while.
She's likes the guy. He's a kind and gentle soul in Harvey's hectic world.
They walk quietly to the elevator, as he presses the buttons, allowing her to enter first.
She wonders if they'll ride the whole way down in this kind of silence, as her sensory peripherals stretch out to map his form, stood a hands reach from her own. He's begun to slump a little, his usually tall stature taking on the wearing of the day.
She hears him sigh, his right shoulder rolling slightly with what she assumes is ingrained discomfort.
"I heard you talked to Mike." He says, straightening once more.
"I did." She nods. "He's...I miss him." She says, knowing where the words will lead.
"Me too." He sighs frankly.
Her head turns to him, noticing that look of guilt fly across his face with speed of thought. "We'll get him back, Harvey." She tries to assure him.
"I know." He nods briefly, his eyes flicking about her face for a moment.
There it is again,
That feeling.
That weight.
She doesn't know what to say, any funny string of remarks falling away from her mouth like sand.
Before she even collects the silence between them, the elevator doors open, and instinctively she glides out before him.
She doesn't look back, as the glass dome is exchanged for the purple and onyx sky and a sleek almost liquid covered car that waits silently and reflects the night.
She smiles, when the driver of said car slides out and around to open the door for her before Harvey has even caught up to them both.
"Ray, you didn't need to do that," She scolds him softly, her face bending with a silent greeting.
"For you Donna? Anything." He reminds her with a wink, before nodding to an arriving Harvey, and returning around to the front of the car.
She glances at Harvey, noticing his slightly pensive face, before sliding onto the backseat. At once she is enveloped with the familiar scent of the car, patches of Harvey's cologne mixed in with cedarwood and freshly polished leather.
"Nice job on the car, Ray." Harvey greets, the lines on his face ironing out. "You go back to the old place?" He half enquires.
"Yes I did, Mr Specter."
"Good call." He nods, his face bending in a comfortable line.
.
They ride in what should be a comfortable silence, the sound of Johnny Coltrane flooding the car. She knows they're both tired. Ray doesn't speak because he knows Harvey. It's ingrained in him to let the man strike up conversation when he's so silent.
She can't help but wonder what is going through his head. And the lack of urge to ask.
Her phone beeps twice in that time. She curses silently to herself, until she notices the odd and humoured look on his face.
"What?" She enquires, turning off her phone this time.
"I just find it funny that you haven't told this guy where to go."
"Harvey. It's...complicated." She says, watching as his face sharpens with scrutiny.
"What did he do?" He asks her.
"Nothing." She insists. "He..wants to...move in with me." She says, sighing at the fact as it still continues to consume her.
"And...you don't want him to move in…?"
"I…."
She's sure she doesn't.
She's pausing on it.
But the overwhelming stare of her Boss, his eyes boring into hers isn't helping clarify that decision anymore than she already has.
She swallows, covering the act by straightening in her seat.
"What's with this third degree? What are you? Me?" She gawps, suddenly animated.
"Fine." He says, his jaw twitching with what she assumes is humour laden arrogance. "Get sensitive about it. It's written all over your face."
"What. Exactly, is written all over my face?"
"You're just...dating him to pass the time." He tells her.
She struggles to ignore the slight clearing of throat from Ray, way in the front.
Her mouth opens, looking at him as the car slides to a halt.
She doesn't know what to say. And yet an anger is peeking out through the cracks now and she can't fathom why that is.
She narrows her eyes, sliding her bag onto her lap.
"Thanks for the ride, Ray." She says lightly in the direction of Ray, her eyes laced with sudden and over-reactive contempt as she flashes a look towards Harvey. "Goodnight Harvey. " She throws, before opening the car door.
When she steps out of the car, the cool air doesn't hit her like usual.
She's flushed. And she doesn't even know why. Maybe it's the scotch they'd started the evening with. Maybe it's the way the week is panning out. Maybe it's just the moon and the stars and fate dicking around...
Before she can even reach her apartment building his voice washes over her like several waves of warm heavy chocolate.
"Donna,"
"What?!" She snaps dramatically, spinning on her heel.
"Just...dump the idiot." He smirks.
"Harvey..." She warns, her expression falling into blankness.
"You have this pattern...of dating guys that don't match up. How about you pick one you actually want those things with, for a change?"
"And...I suppose you have someone more suitable in mind?" She quips heavily, giving him a sharp look.
But he's silent, then.
Like always.
Infuriatingly silent about them when he's grown to be open about so many things.
She shakes her head at him and hopes it's enough, as she pulls the door open with a roughness, and swallows the feeling of being on fire.
.
"Donna,"
She silently curses the key that hasn't even made it to the lock, as she swoops around to find him at her door.
206.
The amount of times he's hurt her heart. Or going to, probably.
She promised herself that this would become a less frequent affair, as she turns around to face him.
"Harvey go home. Ray has a family to see tonight, instead of being stationed outside of my building."
"He gets triple." He shrugs, confused by her words as he catches back his own. "Listen, Donna, I,"
"Now hold on...how…..dare you!"
"How dare I?" He squints.
"Yes! How...dare you...profess to tell me what I should and shouldn't do with my love life, when you can't even figure out your own."
"Donna," He warns, his lips bending with unease. "He's not good enough for you," He warns, the edges coming out like a lecture from someone who knows better.
"How do you know? Huh? You've never even met him."
"I don't need to. The guy's an asshole."
"Well. It takes one to know one."
"Funny. And you do have a pattern, by the way."
"Oh, I do, Do I?"
"Yes. You do." He nods.
"Why are you even still here? Speaking of patterns, shouldn't you be boning the next listless woman at the next up and coming bar?"
"Donna," He sighs, "Let's not pretend you don't know that I'm...not doing that right now."
"Oh I know." She swallows.
She knows.
She knows that he goes home and drinks into the night until he falls asleep. That he's too wrought about Mike and too tried to seek out the kind of women that used to keep him up all night.
"Thing is...I can't work out why." She says sharply.
"Really?" He scoffs, his face bending with disbelief.
"Yeah. I'm torn between the fact that Scottie told you she doesn't want to see you for while, or the fact that she's in therapy too. Because, since that happened, and since she came to your office that night, you've been…"
"Been what?"
"Different." She states.
He straightens, taking in her words only to seemingly sigh them out.
"Donna," He says, landing her name. "It has nothing to do with Scottie and you know it." He snaps the words down on her, shutting up any remark she has reeling ready in her head.
It disarms her anger, but only in place of something else. "Harvey, look. I know that you lost your Mother's painting...and the situation with Mike has you off your game right now. But, we'll-"
"Donna, it has nothing to do with that god damned painting or Mike," He bites, cutting her off.
"Then what?" She snaps back, exasperated by this two step half dance they're doing.
"Really? You can work everything else out but you can't figure this?"
Her eyes narrow as the pit of her stomach alludes to things she really wishes it wouldn't.
"Harvey...what are you saying?"
"You." He says. "It has to do with you."
She looks away then.
Even if she had wanted to hear it, it's just too much. She sighs, taking a moment before the decision finds it's way onto her face. "Harvey. We work together." She tells him.
"Didn't stop you coming at me about it before." He reminds her.
"Yeah. And that worked out so well the last time." She says, the sarcasm lacing her words.
She's right.
She knows that he hates the way that she looks at him, pulling at that truth for all it's worth by the way his shoulders slump.
"Maybe...things are different now?" He manages to say.
She rides the impulse to challenge him. It's a stupid whim but she's already feeling exposed by his insistence, and rubbed raw by her fight with Mitchell. "That's it? That's all you got?"
"What do you want me to say, Donna?" He asks, an edge about him then. "What exactly do you want us to be?"
"Nothing, Harvey." She bites at him, a tiredness riding her now. "Every time you fail to say half nothings to me...it only tells me that we're exactly where we should be." She tells him. "We've been there before. And I'm with Mitchell now. I don't want to go there again."
His face falls and she wants fall into a hole with it. But by the time she looks back at him he's looking at her differently once more.
"I'm sorry….that I hurt you."
"You already said that."
"Do you...want me to say more?" He asks, the touch of a smirk on his crooked lips.
It leaves her breathless, the weight behind his words. How they seemed pinned up by a proposal and a hidden curve ball and so similar to last time.
"Donna?"
They both look towards the man stood, suddenly present and panting slightly from his assault of her stairs.
"Mitchell." She blinks, her eyes wide and then some.
"You wouldn't answer your-"
"Mitchell." Harvey repeats, interrupting the man's train of thought with a dull tone.
The man before them straightens, frowning slightly in a way that doesn't fit the man's honest looking features, with a lightness in his eyes and a subtle grace to his appearance.
"And you are?" The man asks, looking down to Harvey
She interrupts with a lightning impulse. "This is my Boss, Harvey Specter."
"At your front door?" The man enquires with an interest.
"He's….We've…" She pauses, looking to Harvey. She wishes she hadn't and can read every inch of his face in a way that drags at her insides. "Known each other a...long time." She says, before turning her attention to Mitchell. "Why are you here?"
"I…" He pauses, blinking as he observes the other man at his own girlfriend's door. "Do you mind, giving us…" He asks Harvey vaguely.
Donna notices Mitchell, overcome with a multitude of emotions at Harvey being at her door.
"Harvey." She says, gaining his attention for a moment. "I'll...see you tomorrow." She offers, faking a levelled expression as she fishes for her keys, opening the door before watching her boyfriend awkwardly pass them both to tread over the threshold of her apartment.
If looks could bruise, she figures Harvey's would leave mark until her very last breath.
.
Harvey Specter doesn't sleep that night.
He can't sleep.
He's angry at himself, and angry at her and confused as hell.
He doesn't know why he pushed it. It came out of a veritable nowhere in his mind, but now he's frustrated and lost in the myre of feeling. A myre that seems, more often lately, to be repeating on him with a bile ridden taste in his mouth, like shitty Thai food.
Mike.
Sutter.
Cahill.
The Firm falling and rising like a broken sail on it's worn ship.
Even through all of that, and his unwavered concentration on getting Mike out of that danger-ridden shit hole,
Somehow,
There is Donna. Still.
A problem, ever-present.
Pressing on him like a marble pillar.
All he can think of to do, lately, is to fold into her. In every conceivable way.
And it doesn't make sense. And the notion of it is riddled with warning signs. It's not only her red hair that spells 'danger'.
He doesn't go to her. He doesn't call, as he lays there, sweating against his egyptian slate coloured sheets.
But he does dream of her. In the arms of a man that he's only seen once.
In his dream he makes himself watch, as she is fucked in his own bed by a man that isn't him.
Fucked, next to the painting his Mother made for him.
The next morning, he is absent at work, pounding on Agard's door again without an appointment just to disarm the strict tightness in his chest.
Please feed the kitty!