Author's Notes: I'm not going to lie, I just love to write Harvey's 'insides'. Especially when they are solely about Donna Paulsen. He is a simple soul, wrapped in complications of youth. How Harvey Specter ticks is very much my morning coffee.
. . . ..
Mountains
By Atheniandream
. . ...
Standing now
Calling all the people here to see the show
Calling for my demons now to let me go
I need something, give me something wonderful
I believe
She won't take me somewhere I'm not supposed to be
You can't steal the things that god has given me
No more pain and no more shame and misery
You can't take me down
You can't break me down
You can't take me down
. . . ..
Harvey kneels, filling his lungs with breath, feeling that thick curtain of hair brush against his knuckles, the emotion it conjures bringing the hairs on the back of his hand to stand in attention as his eyes flick to examine hazel flecks and the warmth of a held emotion that hasn't quite reached the surface yet. He smirks, half to himself, the glistening morning rays catching between that waterfall of copper and tangerine waves. There is something so vibrant and so precious about their bodies exhibiting the same space, like two kindred spirits aligning on the same common truth. Like two parts of a whole rounding together to complete a circle and ignite it's true power. His hand lifts to her face, the coffee coloured freckles sending a shiver through his chest and his nipples to harden, as her eyes witness his action, the tanned skin of his fingers sliding over the pinnacle of her porcelain cheekbone, eliciting a smile that bends across her own face as she leans indulgently into him. It ruptures a control that he has been holding within him for what feels like far too long a time, as he inhales sharply, awash with attraction and something guttural overriding his mind as his other hand flattens on the curve of her back, pressing them flush together, his nose brushing along the side of hers, before he angles his head in a rush, claiming her lips in a way that has her gasping against him, her hands encircling him to pull him even closer into her as their lips entangle almost, his mouth sucking at hers with an insistence that could claim his entire day as only her. Without warning he is nudging her backwards into cushions and swathes of light grey material, his arms wrapping around her to brace their fall as she chuckles into his mouth.
He feels like a passion-heated breeze on a lost Arizona highway, lit up by the untempered sun, as he breaks apart from her, hovering above her smirking form.
"I love that we can do this now." He tells her, his voice honest and stripped of doubt, his hands and fingertips tracing her hip bones as his eyes, full of fire and light yet something a touch cautious, wander with a purpose over her body. "Promise me...it'll never change?" He asks her, his voice heavy and hard and hopeful.
He feels a shift, something that circumvents the tone as she sits up against him, suddenly predatory as her eyes turn brown and withholding, her hand scraping down his neck like a brandished memory of their past as she kisses him on his left, the space just below his ear, before her lips raise to whisper.
"But Harvey...I didn't feel anything when I kissed you." She says, shocking his sense as she pulls back to look squarely at him. "Whatever I thought might be there, wasn't." She says.
His eyes snap open with a thud, on the edge of a gasp, a frown ripping into action quicker than his brain can even adjust to his true surroundings. It drops a pit in his stomach, as he sits up on the bed, the cover pooling around him. He looks down briefly, his head bowing in disappointment at the very clear fact; he is hard as fuck.
It was a dream. A goddamn dream…
For all the best and worst reasons imaginable.
He whips a breath into his lungs, resentment and disappointment painting his face with a disjointedness as he tries to calm the arousal with in him, reminding himself of a very agonizing truth that had hung in her words.
Whatever she had been looking for between them, inside of him, to her mind, wasn't there.
And now, whenever he looks at her, and her back at him, it's like she's seeing someone else.
It was apparent that at this point, his life really couldn't get much worse.
Jessica was gone, an admission that still stung no matter how well he had dealt with the aftermath. Her guidance, and her assurances of his personal relationships weren't worth the paper that they were printed on.
He had left Paula Agard behind. Because she wasn't the one. He knew that, through and through but it didn't lessen the burn of having to end yet another relationship. He had been fighting the truths in his heart and the circumstances all around him, and everything had come to a bitter climax. But for what?
What was the truth ever going to give him in return?
For a man who had loved his life, dating women, sleeping with as many as he could fit into a work week. Hitting cases head on and smashing the competition, he realises, now, that his younger self had been blind to the real world, distracted with living at the top of his game.
Now, Harvey Specter was older, wiser, but no better off, it seemed.
He was tired.
Being Managing Partner was tiring.
Change was tiring.
The thought of Donna Paulsen made him more so…
He showers in silence, the welcome relief of any unnatural arousal washing away with the night before. He doesn't examine his face in the mirror, doesn't catch the indented frown he already knows is going to plague his day and catch at her attentions with record timing.
For the first time in his life, he's actually glad she's not his Assistant anymore. That there is at least a wall enough to hide him from her keen deductions, and confused attention of him.
He dresses in a calculated fashion. Not a hair, pleat or cufflink out of place. He does it half to eliminate her assault of his attire, and half as a true act of defiance. To ensure that she can't tell a damned thing about his current emotional state.
He ignores the vanilla in his coffee, how it's mere presence soothes him, and then he's sure, that all the preparation, and the time that he wasted picking the perfect tie was worth it, if he accidentally softens in the wake of seeing her.
He's fought many things over the years. Her pushing at him, gripping him for answers over the reasoning of Mike's situation, and his actions, the many relationships he's had, and even her, at points. He's resisted her, even tried to second guess her strategies just to give him some semblance of inner peace.
But there have been days...that she doesn't ask. That she's silent, and removed and it leaves him...longing.
He doesn't understand her part in his life anymore. And yet he can't see over her, now.
She is all he sees for miles and miles and miles. Like a mountain he can never overcome.
Paula showed him that, at least. Donna is the answer to every question in his life, and that truth is more agonizing than any bruise he's ever nursed, or any drop of blood that has ever been shed in his life. Out of his Mother, his Father, infidelity and his inability to share himself with the world, after all that has passed him, and after all that he has personally achieved,
She is the last problem in his life.
It's polarising, a person that has carried him in so many ways for so long, now being his only obstacle.
And it hurts, that it's her, above everybody else.
..
He glides out of his building, noticing his car pull up, Ray reliably rolling down the window, his usual cordial smile peeking at him through the mirror.
He softens then. Ray is gentle soul, with a loyal appreciation of his role in Harvey's life, and a similar love for Jazz. He smirks at his friend, opening the car door to slide sleekly onto the backseat.
"Morning, Mr Specter," Ray says into the rearview mirror.
Ray is like Donna in some ways, perceptive, but more respectful of his boundaries. The man can tell when his walls are up and there's nobody home, and similarly the days when there is a spring in his step.
"Morning Ray." He offers in response, trying to be cordial. "How's the ball and chain?"
He realises only after he says it, that he's verging on untreated ground.
"Same old, Sir. And yourself?" He replies as the car pulls away into busy traffic. "How is Ms Agard?"
He swallows thickly. "She's...good. But, we...ended things." He admits, plainly.
"I'm sorry, Harvey." Ray replies. He can't see the man's face, but he'll wager that he's avoiding the rear view out of respect. Avoiding a reaction that would chart an opinion.
"It's okay. Wasn't meant to be." He says with a sigh, feeling his chest tighten despite Ray's kindness.
They approach a cavern of silence between them, as he lets Ray concentrate and as his gaze gravitates to the right window, the radio emitting streams of some instrumental sax solo that seems new and uncharted territory, but seems to soothe his tension somewhat. His eye spies woman after woman, beautiful and rare in their own particular ways, gliding along the sidewalk with that New York line of purpose. Models. Lawyers. Bankers. Secretaries. He frowns, examining each one. A few years ago, he'd have been lining every one up in his mind, picking up the one that caught his eye in more ways than one. Harvey had never been afraid to fail with women. He had the kind of charm that would slide right over the next woman should the first not be interested, and it wasn't that he saw them as the same. He loved women and he loved sex, and it was effortless for him for so long that it became a second nature game.
He's different now.
Scottie changed that.
But Donna enforced it.
Donna enforced everything about him, from that point on.
And he had let her.
Because he loved her. Loves her, still. And she knows it.
How much, he's never sure, even to himself, but he's told her. As much as he was able to at the time.
Paula Agard was a blind fear lodged into an action.
She was his attempt to move on from something that he had run from.
But all that was left, now, was her.
"Do you believe in soulmates, Ray?" He asks boldly, a tightness in his face to match the slightly intense tone.
He sees Ray's wide eyes scrutinise him in the mirror.
He shuffles in his seat, just to stop himself from ripping away from this little whim that has emerged from within him.
"Yes Harvey, I do." He says lightly, ever the chipper one between them. "Why do you ask?"
"Did you ever...meet yours?" He asks then.
"Harvey...I was lucky enough to marry mine." He watches as the man smiles to himself.
He notices that look...He's felt that look before...
"Why do you ask?" Ray's voice cuts through his reverie, as his eyes, slightly glazed flick up to his friend and driver.
"No reason." He remarks, the response automatic. "Just...something someone said."
He doesn't bother to look at Ray again during the rest of the journey, and is inwardly relieved when the firm's building slides against the car's right side, the sidewalk stilling and people marching at various speeds beside his seated form. He glides out of the car, giving Ray a cursory nod, before entering the lobby.
He rides on autopilot, the security allowing him access without any ID - something he had wrangled from years of the same staff and his branching reputation - and joining an assorted variety of people in the elevator. His mind switches off, allowing him to compartmentalise his tough morning as he rides to the fiftieth floor, the doors opening out into the lobby. His name, front and center to his right gives him life, and breathes a little confidence into his current circumstance. There have been wins, and he has accomplished something, at least.
"Good Morning Mr Specter," He receives from a lobby receptionist, the one that isn't occupied with a call. He smiles, tight lipped and dashes the image of the rather pretty woman laid flat on his bed, naked and wanting in some position he's encouraged her into - something he knows is very much against the ethos he is trying to promote in his firm - and stalks the halls towards his office. He passes Louis's glass enclosure of sorts, who salutes him from his desk, and Gretchen who gives him a knowing look - although knowing of what, he is unsure. That woman is like dynamite, stuck in the top of a mountain of truth - and passes Mike's office. It is empty, as per, and no doubt means that he is either late, again, or busying himself into the day like he has known him to do.
Their relationship has changed since he fell, weed laden into Donna's impromptu interview. Out of work they are the same, friends, buddies, sparring partners. But in work, he is no longer hanging off his tailcoats. He has his own agenda, and his own stack of work to manage. He sighs, the days of their strict partnership behind them both in a way that still causes a sadness to pull at him.
He thinks on a drink, idly. He could use a beer and a buddy and a night away from the normal...
He drops all thought, his footing stalling when he sees her, walking with paperwork in her arms, and a pen in her mouth, dressed in colours he hasn't seen on her in forever and day.
You don't own me
Woah, let's go
But I'm Gerald and I can always have just what I want
She's that baddest I would love to flaunt
Take her shopping, you know Yves Saint Laurent
But nope, she ain't with it though
All because she got her own dough
Boss bossed if you don't know
She could never ever be a broke ho
You don't own me
I'm not just one of your many toys
You don't own me
Don't say I can't go with other boys
Don't tell me what to do
And don't tell me what to say
Please, when I go out with you
Don't put me on display
Her bright hair hangs in a ripple across the side of her face, something held and poised and slightly coral in tone, offsetting the royal blue sheath dress with flashes of silver. She is all legs, with very high nude Manolos, peach coloured lips and a dewiness in the sparkling sunlight of the day.
If seeing her last night pulled at the softness of her, barefoot and small and delicate, this was the very opposite, with her daring and alluring and all business.
Danger, in all her glory.
His jaw tightens, as she looks up, the picture of innocence and lightness in a way that draws a suspicion in his mind. Maroon nails pluck the pen from her mouth, as she holds the files to her chest.
"Hey...Harvey," She says, her tone bending slightly to match the angle of her head.
"Morning Donna," He says, drawing in a breath as he feels her almost match his height.
It doesn't take heels to have her make him feel small these days. Her mere presence in his life, and where he holds her do that just fine…
She gives him a look, as he hurriedly side steps her, regretting almost instantly the sliver of feeling that he allows to pour out of him, closing his eyes in frustration as he stalks into his apartment and avoids any words she may have had for him.
If she asks how he's doing, or insinuates that he's suffering after Paula, he really will lose his shit.
He halts, an inch away from his desk.
There is a disposable coffee cup waiting for him, his name scrawled in her handwriting across the cardboard holder.
It's like the opposite of her goodbye letter of a resignation.
It's a love letter.
He shrugs out a breath, taking it in his hands as he pulls out his chair and sits down, a deeper frown knitting together as he brings the cup slowly to his lips, the still hot - probably extra hot when she had ordered it, just the way he likes it - coffee. It's salty tang mixes in with that innate flavour that he has tarnished his love for her with, as it washes cleanly over him, breathing life into his muscles, offering a bell's ring of attention into his brain, and calming him almost instantly.
He opens his eyes to the day. To the truths right in front of him.
And accepts this little piece of herself,
That she gives him without recourse.
For as long as this coffee lasts, he finds himself enduring the distance between them.
Even as she is no less than a wall away from him, in his less-than-perfect world,
But entire mountains away from him, in his mind.
. . ….
You can't take me down
You can't break me down
You can't take me down
Love and hate
How much more are we supposed to tolerate
Can't you see there's more to me than my mistakes
Sometimes I get this feeling makes me hesitate
I believe
She won't take me somewhere I'm not supposed to be
You can't steal the things that god has given me
No more pain and no more shame and misery
. . ….
Fin.
. . ….
Notes:
LOOK OUT FOR THE MINI SEQUEL TO THIS, SET AFTER 7.14 & BEFORE 7.15 ENTITLED 'GOLD'
I can't help dressing Sarah Rafferty's Donna in things that Harvey Specter would secretly toy over in his mind. Look up 'Oscar de la Renta - Coral embroidered sheath dress' on Saks Website for this one.