"I'm sorry Harvey. I just had to know."
Donna's fingers slide down his arm, the fabric of his suit tingling with the billions of nerve endings in her fingertips, the structure, the smoothness of the wool and silk mix, but it's nothing compared to the warmth of his skin on his neck or the softness of his hair where they passed just seconds ago.
Nothing compared to the firmness of his jawline, or the slight hint of a 5 o'clock shadow, revealing the discrepancy between the rough and the more delicate areas of his face, of him.
Her lips still pound from the sensation of his, but she manages to look him straight in the eyes, without even a single blink.
Her voice is steady, calm, confident. No hint of the turmoil she is actually feeling, that is twisting her guts, performing somersaults with her heart, making her knees so weak she doubts she can walk away from him or even continue standing here.
But she has to. She has to go, now.
She can't be here any more.
As she lets go of his arm, the back of her palm strikes his, so subtle and gentle, that even she isn't sure it actually happened.
The vulnerability in his gaze, the shock that is written all over his face, tries to put a tear or two into the corner of her eyes, but she withstands the urge to break down.
Suddenly a blank and bold detachment washes over her like the unforgiving waves of the atlantic ocean on a winter's day, filling her with absolutely nothing, leaving her empty and numb instead.
She breaks the spell, regaining control of her knees and feet, and heads to the door of her office, leaving him behind.
"Good, you're still here. Where's Louis? Cause I have some news and I think you should both…"
Harvey never gets to finish his sentence.
All he grasps is that Donna walks up to him vigorously, wraps her arms around his neck and presses her mouth on his lips.
'What the f…' echoes in his mind as his eyebrows automatically rise up just by the pure surprise, not to say shock of the whole situation when milliseconds later the sensation of her soft lips caressing his own kicks in, her fingers playing with the hair in the back of his head, her auburn locks striking his face.
Right this moment, everything else is erased, all he can do is to just give in.
His mind shuts down completely as do his eyes and he leans in towards her, too eager to feel more of her, to explore her taste, to extend this exquisite sensation when suddenly all of this ends abruptly.
She disconnects their locked lips, removing herself slightly but surely away from him.
He is even more shocked about this than about anything else, the thought that this kiss would actually end at any point in the near future didn't even cross his mind for the past couple of moments.
He looks bewildered into Donna's hazel eyes, confusion distorting his features, when the realization of what just happened flashes over him, forcing his brain to start working again, thinking again.
The look on her face is startling him, her controlled and almost cold expression is the absolute opposite of what he would have expected, not resembling his own emotional turmoil at all.
He searches her eyes for an answer, for anything at this point, he wouldn't give two shits about what exactly, just any form of explanation, of his own torn apart state reflecting in her stare.
"I'm sorry Harvey. I just had to know."
Donna's eyes close as she passes by his side, heading to the door.
In a last attempt to give this any kind of reasonable frame, he turns around to catch a glimpse of her red hair while she walked away from him.
From all of it.
Her last words didn't make any sense to him, and just to be exact, none of it made any fucking sense to him right now.
His eyes wander around, blind for the skyline outside the office window, blind for the interior of her playfully but also professional decorated office, even blind for his own image reflected in the glass upon the dark surface of the night.
Donna pushes the elevator button in an almost brutal stakkato, as the panic sets in.
What on earth did she just do?
Did she just kiss him?
And the more urgent question right now was definitely if he would go after her and ask her what the fuck she did back there in her new COO office.
What the hell she was thinking when she kissed him, being in a serious relationship with a serious woman.
Being the managing partner of the firm she worked in.
Being her friend and companion for the past 13 years.
Just hours after being accused by this piece of scum Andy Malik in court of sleeping her way up into her new position.
The relief she feels as the elevator doors finally slid open has an almost religious aspect to it, as it makes her mumble a silent 'Halleluja' before entering.
She doesn't even turn around to acknowledge the doors closing behind her, too scared she might get a glimpse of Harvey, storming his way through the corridor, his face a mask of anger and disappointment, to confront her about what just has happened.
Yes, she was sorry.
She was sorry to have put their friendship into serious jeopardy.
To endanger his blossoming relationship as well.
To have risked their work relation.
But she knows that she would have been much more sorry about not having tried.
She was just so tired of neglecting her feelings for him, and the speech Louis gave her just minutes before she actually took action, must have been the last drop in her almost fathomless patience with Harvey.
Noticing her contorted features in the mirrored wall of the elevator, she takes a deep breath.
She can't cry right now, although the swallowed tears already smear her mascara into the corners of her eyes.
Trying to diminish the damage before having to exit into the lobby, even in this late hour most likely filled with plenty of people, Donna is still aware that she looks rather devastated.
But well.
She just ruined everything.
Even the absence of a deranged make up wouldn't amend that.
Obscuring her face behind the translucent curtain of her hair, she marches through the lobby without looking left or right.
As the first hints of the cool breeze of the outside strikes her still glowing cheeks, she can't help it but to feel relief.
And the desperate need for a drink. Or several.
Harvey doesn't know how long he has been standing in the same damn spot where Donna left him, without a single movement or even a single concrete thought.
All he knows is that it must have been a god-awful long time as he notices the cleaning lady passing through the hallway with her mop equipment being mirrored in the window glass behind his own image.
The night increased its intensity, the office hall lights dimmed down, yet still he was standing in Donna's office.
Not that he noticed any of this.
And he couldn't care less about it.
The thing that finally wakes him up from his stupor is the vibration of his cell phone in his pocket.
His heart drops as he realizes it could only be Donna.
Oh god, Donna.
Or it could be even worse.
It could be Paula.
Ice floods his veins as he remembers they had a dinner reservation for tonight in his favourite restaurant.
He lets it go to voicemail without even checking the caller I.D. .
He isn't prepared for neither of them.
God, he isn't even prepared for himself.
His sight gets caught by the bottle of Scotch hidden underneath the little coffee table to his right.
For that sort of turbulence that Donna has forced him to go through, for which any pilot, or co-pilot for that matter, would have been fired in an instant, she at least owed him a fucking drink.
His hand reaches out for the bottle as his pocket is starting to vibrate again.
Ignoring the constant interrupting impulses running down his hip, he pours himself a double.
Whoever of them is calling, they will have to wait until the harsh taste of liquor filled his mouth.
As the Scotch finally tingles his palate, the phone stops annoying him.
He drowns the drink and instantly refills the glass, when the phone reminds him of an unheard voicemail he just received.
The alcohol takes its effect on his empty stomach, the warmth spreading all over his chest, filling his head with a more than welcome numbness.
Whatever this was, whatever has to come next, he couldn't deal with it right now.
All he wanted to do and all he would do, is to sit here in this gloomy room, with the cleaning lady vacuum cleaning the offices of his co-workers and subordinates, holding the Scotch, and refilling his glass til the bottom end.
He could not think of her.
Or of the other her.
Whenever his mind drifted to one of them, he quickly poured more poison into himself.
Whenever his mind wandered off to the consequences of what has happened, he would even pour a larger portion.
After the sixth drink his eyes couldn't focus on a specific point in the room anymore.
Great.
That was exactly what he needed.
Unfortunately that was also the exact moment he heard footsteps approaching his little cave of doom and alcohol abuse.
"Harvey, what in God's sacred name are you still doing here? Why don't you pick up your phone? I've been calling you half night long! Jessica wants her name to put off the wall! She has been disbarred in New York! Holy shit, Harvey, what are we gonna do about this? And besides, what the hell are you doing in Donna's office? Where's Donna?"
Harvey's fingers subconsciously wander off to massage his forehead as he tries not to mumble.
"Not now Louis."
"What do you mean not now Harvey? It's about Jessica!"
Harvey turns his head, his eyes bloodshot, his eyebrows cringe of frustration.
"I said, not now, Louis!"
This time Louis' eyebrows cringe of frustration and also of slight perplexity.
"But Harvey, I...I…"
Harvey interrupts him in a voice more similar to the growling of an animal than any tone a human vocal chord could possibly produce.
"Louis, I really mean it this time. Not now."
Harvey's inner agitation must have been so ridiculously obvious to the point where even such a self centered person as Louis got the hint.
Louis' features undertake a rapid change into a soft and worrying stage, his eyes turn into melted chocolate chip ice cream, his voice husky.
"Harvey, what happened? Is it about Jessica?"
Annoyed to a point of no return, but also noticing that Louis was seriously invested into Harvey's well being this time rather than his own, Harvey clears his throat and soothes it with another sip of the amber coloured liquid.
"No, Louis. It's not about Jessica. It's personal."
"Oh my god, Harvey, what happened? Did Dr. Agard, ehm, I mean, Paula, you know what I mean, did something happen? Did you have a fight or something? Don't worry Harvey, it'll be alright! We call Dr. Lipschitz, heˋll know what to do!"
Harvey rolls his eyes, and a deep sigh leaves the depths of his lungs.
"No Louis, we won't call your psychiatrist. God!"
Harvey covers his face with his hands, slowly letting the fingers slide down to his jaw, where they hesitate and come to an indefinite stop, somewhere near the corners of his mouth.
"Ok Harvey, no Dr. Lipschitz. Whatever it is, I'm here for you. I'll listen. We figure this out."
Louis' eager tone strikes a sensitive nerve in Harvey, holy shit, what the hell was wrong with him?
He is most certainly in no condition to deal with Louis or any of this right now.
Or maybe never.
Never feels about right though.
Harvey's cell phone suddenly starts to act out again, performing a little dance in his pocket.
The minimum amount of relief he felt when Louis told him it was him who was calling is so impetuously removed from him that Harvey suddenly finds himself on the verge of passing out.
His fingers have trouble to pick up the glass and maneuver it to his lips.
"Harvey, your cell phone is ringing."
"I know Louis."
"Don't you want to pick up? It could be Dr. Agard, ehh I mean Paula, or Jessica or…"
"Or Donna."
Harvey looks Louis straight in the eye, well aware that his face will tell the whole story by its own.
