Author's Notes:
Based on a Prompt at Darveyfics. Post 7.10. This one got WAY outta control, and I originally pledged never to write this sort of fic...until now! lol :face palm:
If you've been reading on Darveyfics skip to Chapter Two when it's up! A _
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The Last Stop
By Atheniandream / Redwineonavanillaskye
They had been fighting. If that's what you could call it...
Tooth and nail, blood, sweat and tears, cats and dogs...the whole gambit of idioms didn't quite match up for what it looked like.
Like a shock to the system, they suddenly went from being an unsinkable ship and an unstoppable force, to being akin to one hundred screaming people bobbing about in an ocean filled with bloodthirsty sharks and no 'saving' flare for the starless night sky.
Like the tearing down of a house, as the family that it was taken from, look on in horror.
His words came out like acid.
Her replies stuck to them like glue.
Neither seemed to be getting out 'alive', by this point.
They hadn't even been discreet, their voices reaching past glass, like they could shatter it, and behind closed doors like they could rip them from their hinges.
"You know, Donna, you know that what you did was the one thing in the world that I can't ever forgive you for!" He says, his breathing shallow.
"I don't care if you forgive me or not, Harvey." She says, spitting the words at him. "For once this isn't about you and your bullshit. Or you and your girlfriends, that I have spent my entire career helping you with...this is about ME. And what I needed to know." She gestures to herself. "And if I thought for a second that you'd treat me like this? Then I would have never followed you this far in the first place." She says, her words causing a reverberating shock between them. "Maybe I made a mistake in coming with you." She blurts out.
He pauses, then. Visibly hit by her unbridled meaning.
He swallows. "Donna," He manages, his jaw setting like a warning.
"No, Harvey. From this moment on...we...are done." She bites, turning on her heel.
He reigns in a breath, his eyes bulging at her words, his chest stuttering in an effort for breath before he double takes, following her.
He's on autopilot then, forgetting the quiver in his heart and suddenly driven by fury and anger and frustration that she's always the one to have the last word. The one to hurt him. The one to leave.
And he's done letting her have the last of them.
He marches out of his office, seeing her suddenly redder hair whip around the corner.
"Harvey?" Mike comes into view in front of him, a look of concern on his face, and a file in his hands as he turns to him.
"Mike, not now!" He snaps, slashing his arm into the air and passing his Partner.
He's sure he hears his footsteps follow him, but he's like a shark then, zoning in on his target with only crimson in his eyes.
He strides towards the elevator, people milling about there casually and contradictory to the motor in his head as he spots her slide between the two doors. He quickens his pace, his feet almost rising from the ground as he bounds towards her to try and catch her. He witnesses her ignore him, pointedly, as she presses the buttons several times.
"Donna!" He shouts, his hand colliding with metal as his only chance slides shut against him.
"Harvey!" He hears Mike call after him, as his attention catches to the next available elevator, as he glides between the doors, pressing the button to prematurely close them.
.
Donna's breath is coming in waves, her heart hammering in her chest.
She's done.
She's reached her limit. Finally, she's run out of patience for them.
Paula Agard can have him. He's worth nothing to her now.
Maybe he was always an asshole and she was blind to it this entire time...
Maybe she never broached the subject with him, because deep down in her heart she knew that he didn't have it in him. That she had never been the one for him. That their situation was just ghosting on stolen time, now, every grain of salt running to an end.
She feels herself start to hiccup with a panicked cry, and stops breathing just to claim a little control.
She taps her foot, ignoring the other people that enter and exit the metal box, and concentrates on the number of the floors that decrease sequentially.
When the elevator his '0′ she's out of there quicker than a rat down an aqueduct, her heels clicking with a force against the polished concrete flooring as she stalks towards the turnstiles.
Bag or no bag she is out of there. She mentally thanks herself for wearing a dress with pockets, her phone and two twenties her own salvation.
She counts the steps until she reaches the doors.
Doors mean a cab,
And a cab means an escape.
From him. From them. From her nightmare.
. .
He sprints out of the elevator, his heart leaping in his chest with an abruptness, when he spots her rounding the corner to the exit, a whip of auburn hair and intent. He curses her and the air around him at the fact that she has a firm head start. Luckily, his anger is still potent enough, adrenaline coursing through him at a velocity, as he pushes past the turnstile.
He sprints towards the main doors, as they open out onto the busy street.
He blinks, slightly breathless from the ordeal rather than the exercise, his eyes scanning both directions, before he spots her weaving in and out of the heavy foot traffic, boundless on those sky high heels of hers.
. .
She curses the lack of free cabs, her hand waving in a fruitless attempt. She turns, her heels stamping the sidewalk again as she decides that she'll make it out of there on foot if she has to. Her tears are free flowing now, giving people an adequate reason to step clear out of her way as she plants a new objective.
. .
"Hey," He hollers, running after her retreating form. "Donna!" He fires her name like a single bullet in a gun, anger fraying out into his tone of voice enough to leave him breathless once more.
She's still walking away, reaching the corner of the block that their building is on.
He feels a panic rise in him, as his footsteps slow, their distance shortening from his effort.
"Donna, just...STOP." He shouts. More warning in his voice, then, as he watches her look back at him, before glancing to her right with a sense of panic.
Her heeled foot steps onto the tarmac, and then suddenly everything slows down.
Second by second...moment by moment.
She didn't look left.
A drone of a horn fills the air, a disconnected sound, that causes his brain to short and his body to freeze on the spot, watching in horror as a blur of dirty white and silver knocks into her, frame by frame, her red hair and green dress dancing with a weightlessness into the mid-air, as her feet leave the ground, black Manolos with a streak of scarlet red taking flight as the impact shoves her sideways and out into the main street.
She lands in a pile with a crack and he gasps sharply, the sound of the large truck screeching to a halt finally, and almost crashing into a cab on the other side of the street in the process. His eyes zone in on her, as he sprints towards her, screaming out her name but never hearing the sound of his own voice reach his ears.
Suddenly he's panting and kneeling next to a pool of orange and green dipped in tie-dyed red, looking in terror at her unconscious form as his heart beats loudly in his head.
"Call 911," He yells to no one in particular, quickly leaning back over her. "Donna, Donna wake up. Come on! I need you to look at me." He says, his hands hovering above her. He's too terrified to touch her. Too traumatised with the images of the past few seconds flying about his head and falling against the image of her in front of him.
He feels people gather around them as his breath comes violently, his heartbeat reverberating through his chest as his vision starts to blur. He's shouting her name still into the closing silence, as colours bleed into one another and a frenzy buzzes around them in swarm. His head swims, and suddenly the buildings turn sideways, as the sky seems to fall towards him and he feels a thud, his back contacting the hard tarmac. The last thing he sees as he struggles for breath is her face, a muddle of black eyelashes and freckles and running blood as his eyes slip closed and he falls away.
He misses Mike, shaking him.
The sirens.
The panic.
.