Author's Notes: Episode Add-On for 8.01.
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Back in the Fight 1/1
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Today… has been an adjustment for Harvey Specter. Today, for the first day, Mike Ross is not his Right Hand Man. Now he's shooter again, and it's as if the entire situation with that young man never really happened in the first place. As if it's been stripped clean from the firm, taking Rachel with it. And he's flying solo again, after today, able to fight cases and win like he always had done years before, without the drama that the past few years had brought them all. He's unsure of going it alone, without his secret weapon by his side. It's not that he can't. It's just that he had it so easy with Mike by his side. A friend. A brother. A partner. Without him, the firm is just any other firm.
And the dream team is finally no more.
He knows that he's getting older.
But not yet old enough to not fight the good fight.
Donna was right. He's tired of looking down from the top and be impartial, of not being able to 'stick it to the man'. That's his MO, and his true birth rite, ignoring any family lineage. It's what he's good at, and what Jessica plucked him out of the mailroom to do. And maybe, in time, he'll get to back that feeling once more, of knocking the covers off and dominating the field. Now that he's given over the responsibilities - but not all the power - of the firm to Robert Zane, maybe things can finally settle into a groove where he's playing his best.
He does trust the man to do the kind of job that Jessica did. He doesn't trust the loyalty, though, and that's something that he's going have to let play out, and adjust accordingly.
But he has his reservations about Samantha Wheeler. Again...he just has to wait. Pick the right time to make a hedged guess on the kind of coworker she'll turn out to be.
He sighs, opening the door to his apartment, pulling the keys out of the lock as he smiles to himself at the familiar sight.
"Breaking and entering, huh?" He quips, making his way over to the woman that's perched elegantly on his couch like a floral corsage.
"Are you forgetting that I have a spare?" She says.
"I thought we agreed that it was only meant to be used in case of emergency?" He asks, the lean of playful challenge in his voice.
"For what, if the….apartment rises up into a ball of flame?" She offers colourfully.
"Well...that's not going to happen, unless you touch my cooker again. Is it?" He says, regarding her pointedly as he sits down next to her.
She chuckles, the recent memory of her, barefoot in his kitchen, with smoke churning out of the oven, and a rather panicked look on her face, as he came to her aid with chivalry and a touch of sarcasm.
It was not Donna Paulsen's finest moment.
Over the weeks since she'd left and come back. Since he'd chosen Donna of his own girlfriend, a lot has changed for them both.
Getting to dance with her in front of their married best friends was just the icing on the cake.
"Hey." He says, their faces drawing towards one another until they are about an inch or so away, a tantalising amount of space that has bred so many more opportunities for them.
"Hey." She replies, smirking lazily as his face nears hers, his knuckles brushing the edges of her long hair, his hand overturning as he allows the length of it to run through his fingers.
He's tentative with her, because he's terrified of screwing things up. She is too important to waist on bad planning and loose spontaneity.
He's less than a centimeter away from her lips when a puff of air and past words halt him in his tracks.
"'So..Saving you from yourself?" She says, her expression changing into a more animated one, as she regards similar words he'd uttered in a moment of stress, hours earlier.
She's a game-player, he realises. Always keeping him on his toes.
He groans, his head tilting slightly as he pulls away from her. "I was emotional." He defends, his voice dragging on the sentiment.
"You're always emotional." She accuses gently.
"Only with you." He admits.
She smiles to herself then.
He's sure that if he extracts the golden fire light from her face he can spy a slight tinge of a blush forming on her pale, almost ivory cheeks.
"You did a good thing today." She tells him, settling into his side.
"I know." He relents. "And you're right…I do miss the fight."
"Robert won't be a problem." She says. "Samantha Wheeler on the other hand…" Her tone bends into that of seeing an incoming storm on the horizon.
"Oh, she's trouble, alright." He agrees with a sigh. "She came to my office, and gave me the finger." He divulges.
Her eyes widen, interest flooding them as she sits a little straighter, pulling away from him a touch too much for his liking. "Which finger?" She asks with gussy.
"The bad one." He replies, wave after wave of playfulness flowing between them with ease.
"And what did you do?" She asks, her eyebrows raising.
"I gave her one right back." He says, rather smugly.
"Harvey," She chides softly, drawing in a column of air that makes her neck look long and an alluring looking place for his impulses to start.
He ignores her softened telling off, and regards the table in the corner, before looking back to her. "You're not having a drink?" He asks.
"I was waiting for you." She explains lightly, smiling in that way that stirs his gut with a warmth that covers the need for any alcohol.
He thinks of telling her that she doesn't have to. That what's his is hers too, and that she doesn't have to have a sense of propriety when it comes to his apartment. That it's a mere extension of his office and everything else that they share together in this world.
She watches as he raises from his seat, his hand dragging against her side as he pads over to the mini bar, plucking two glasses off of the stack and placing them on the table, as he raises the decanter, yellowy-orange filled and swimming from side to side in the glass vessel, as he pops off the lid, and pours a measure in each, placing the bottle and cap on the table. He carries to two glasses back to her seated form, handing her a glass as she smirks in a quiet thank you. She raises the glass to her lips instantly, watching him place his own glass on the table as he slides off his jacket in one fluid motion.
She swallows, an eyebrow arching as she observes his gesture. "Am I getting a show?" She asks boldly.
"You got the cash to put down?" He offers, his eyes lighting up with a fire that only she can encourage. "I warn you, I am expensive," He jokes, laying his jacket over the back of the furthest couch end, before rolling up his sleeves.
"I think we both know that deep down, underneath all that Tom Ford you...are College Cheerleader Easy…"
"I object," He remarks, feigning hurt at her comment, which doesn't last long as he slides back onto the couch next to her. "I...am a classy guy."
"Well, you're handsome...I wouldn't say classy," She says, her words tipping with an ambiguity and a well placed smile under the cover of the edge of her glass.
"You really know how a make a guy feel special, don'tcha?" He remarks heavily, his hand reaching for his own glass to take a well-earned sip.
"You've never complimented me," She points out, placing her glass down near to where his had been.
"That's because you're already confident enough for both of us," He argues.
"It's not about confidence, Harvey. It's about the guy that you're-"
"Fucking?" He offers with an all too pride-filled smirk.
She throws him a look. "Involved with," she corrects. "Giving you a compliment every so often, to remind you that he still likes you." She tells him, a delicate framing to her words.
"Fine. You want me to say it?" He says, placing his glass down next to hers, the sharpness of a rushed gulp bubbling up in his thoroughly empty stomach. "You're stunning. You were stunning in that lumpy Macy's sweater that you used to insist on wearing, and you're stunning now."
"Awwww…." She coos. "You really did hate that sweater." She says, her eyes lifting to the ceiling in whimsical thought.
"I did." He nods, his face sharpening in thought. "You don't still have it, do you?"
She glances at him, her face taking on that devilishness that he's grown to adore. "The sweater?" She clarifies. "Uhh," She sighs, gently toeing off her heels on the wooden flooring as she lifts them onto the couch, cuddling into his side. "Now, why would I tell you, when I know that it has the potential to be ammo in the future?" She offers, that sickeningly sweet self assuredness as she smiles wickedly at him.
He's in love with this sugar coated dart of a woman, even when she takes no prisoners. Even as he's feeling slightly weaker and she's getting strangely stronger. He'll settle at being quietly by her side if it gets him a date with her every night of the week.
"I'm serious. If you walk that thing into this apartment, I'm going to set it on fire." He warns, the threat potentially empty, his arm sliding along the seatrest and behind her back, as his chest puffs out to add to his remark.
Her eyes widen instently, mock-outrage painting her face as more than red and peach and mossy green. "You wouldn't dare." She says boldly, the last word morphing into an animated hiss
"I would." He counters, his voice bending, as their gazes connect, challenge upon challenge sifting out between them.
"But you won't." She says then, regarding him with an educated confidence.
"And why's that?" He offers, accepting her odds as he inches closer to her, that lash of alcohol flooding his veins with a warmth.
"Because you're 'in love' with me." She says, dropping the biggest card he's given her of late.
"I said that under duress." He notes, his eyes narrowing.
"You said that as I had my tongue in your ear." She adds, giving him a look.
"Exactly." He says, deadpanned. "Like I said...duress." He plays, knowing that he's pulling the moment for all that it's worth. But it's so easy with her. They have a running dialogue that could literally keep him up all night. Like having sex with mere words, it's like nothing he's ever had with any other woman in his life.
She straightens then, stretching to pick up her glass, downing the remaining liquid in one, before placing it back on the table, her relaxing back into his side.
He's taught her to drink like that over the years. She has noone to blame but him, and he's tremendously proud of the fact…
"Fine…" She sighs dramatically. "If you don't want me to kiss you like that anymore, then I'm sure there are plenty other fish in the-"
He's quick to shut her up, as his lips capture hers, tilting her head against his, the words giving him the kind of rise that he can't ever truly acknowledge. The mere idea of her ever touching another man that isn't him, makes him the kind of salty that could dry out the north seas into a desert, and she has become so integral to his being now, that any notion of her being less or other than rides his ire instantly. His right hand, the one resting on the couch rises to the back of her neck, as his left one presses into her waist, goosebumps flooding his back as her right hand trails up his bad shoulder and over his nape, pulling their chests closer as her tongue slides into his mouth with a confidence.
He is the rain, and she is the fire.
And all he wants to do with dance with her.
He pulls away from her, the rush of panting and heartbeats and the colourful look in her eye that emerges from under hooded lids and feathery eyelashes.
For a second he is entertained, in her slightly smudged makeup and the faint taste of lipgloss on his lips. Cherry, if he is to correctly recall.
"Wanna go to bed?" He offers, his gaze calmly as his eyebrow quicks with purpose, cheekbones sharpening into a lazy smirk as his hands dance along her body.
"Aren't you hungry?" She asks. "We haven't eaten." She reminds him, that wifely note in her personality making more sense now that they are involved in on a an altogether different level.
He takes her hand, silently, revelling in the way that she follows him willingly now.
"Ohh…" He sighs, looking behind him. "I thought we'd work up an appetite." He reasons. "Something tells me, I'm looking at another fight tomorrow." He tells her.
"Well then," She reasons, smirking as he guides her to the bedroom. "We better get you on 'top form' then…" She says, all the seductive notes in her voice flooding his senses and raising his growing need of her.
He turns them then, turning her on the spot like a tiny dancer, before leading her backwards through the open bedroom door, spying the frisson in her eyes and her suddenly smaller height.
"Let's not pretend that you're not gonna fight me to be on top." He reminds her.
"Don't pretend that you don't love it," She counters, giggling slightly when he lifts her off of the ground, pressing her against his waist.
He smiles, not an objection in his mind.
The world is changing.
For him.
For them.
For Mike, and for Rachel.
But honestly,
He wouldn't have it any other way...
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