So She Doesn't By Atheniandream
It hits her like a wrecking ball when she hears the word 'beautiful'. Not because it's out of character – which it is; he has never said it even when they attempted to cross the line – but because of how it wrenched her heart; gripping the beat long enough to make her forget herself.
Donna doesn't like forgetting herself.
It's how come they work. Neither of them wants to give up the power; she doesn't want to give up trying to control him and he doesn't want to give up trying to control the world around him. So they play the dance, nice and steady, each footstep leading the way out of each other's grasp.
The word beautiful; 'something to delight the senses especially the eyes', it makes her a girl, lost and shy and open. Openness is not something that is easy for her. Too many tragedies have come from being open. She is happy in her secretive scared and knows herself there even if she doesn't show it.
When she realized she let herself react to it, it was already broken. Meant for a woman who is above her; however much she tries to fight against the fact, it exists plain as day. He will always consider her first; his Boss, his mentor, the one who shone a light on him and continues to illuminate him even when Donna is well aware of that niggle in her gut; the danger of an oncoming betrayal. She is just there to finish him off, pick up the pieces, and sure; she is instrumental in his success. But she is a movable pawn in his life and it poisons her resolve to know it. She knows that he has figured out her worth, how much she is integral to his job. But does he know everything? Of course not; if he did they would probably ruin everything they have for each other. And above everything; above all the heartache and the knowing that he does not love her and that she does love him, she would never ruin what they've created. Because they made it here together and however much he wastes her they are still whole when they are together.
Letting the elevator doors close, she forgets the past few minutes as she is lost in his excitement, eyes gleaming and brain working at ten speed she watches him silently ask the question 'Did she just…?'
She nods in response, assuring him, being the lighthouse glowing in their sea of uncertainty. However much the back of her head alerts her to a question she doesn't want him to think of right now and a future possibly changeable and not for the better she smiles back at him, a smile from her very centre.
Maintenance is on-call and it doesn't take two minutes for her to charm someone into taking it down, but she lets him have the 'H', watching as he pulls it off the screw setting, examining the corners of where he hit it with a kind of reverence.
She waits until he finishes andthen she moves towards the 'D' carefully unhinging it before popping it in her bag as the handyman gets to work on the rest of the letters and offending screws. He doesn't ask why and she doesn't offer an explanation. They have been instrumental in extracting a virus amongst the company. It has been exterminated. She can see it in his demeanour that he is proud of himself, but relieved mostly. They are tired of this and happy for the end to have come.
She picks up her bag, shaking her hair as she presses the button. She doesn't offer any introduction to her exit or any indication that she's leaving other than the sound of the elevator returning.
"You finally going home, huh?" He asks, voice sounding a little unsure but still clothed in bravado.
"Yep, my work here is done," She replies, trying to not let the hard wall she's put up affect her mood.
"Come and get a drink with me." He says, purring a little as he holds the letter in his hands.
She doesn't know if he's realised her mood since Jessica passed them, and really she doesn't care. Her resolve closed the open wound just as quickly as it had been opened by their moment together. She looks at him for just a second too long; thinking how he looked so young and unguarded in this moment and how she feels so old against him.
So she doesn't say 'yes'.
She needs time to rebuild the defences that are falling down around her. Otherwise he'll rethink why he hired her, and realise that maybe her staged attitude towards him this whole time – a time spanning their time here together – has really been a lie to keep her heart at bay.
Instead she says:
"Maybe another time… Goodnight, Harvey."
So she doesn't…