A/N: SPOILER WARNING please do not read if you do not want to be spoiled for episode 7x10.
this episode completely messed with me and this is what I wrote in the middle of the night as a result. Hope you enjoy.
She's leaving the building, phone in hand. She knows now, knows that it's done and that they can't go back to what they were; they never were what she thought they were but that's okay because at least she knows. But why is she so calm?
It happened.
It happened, and it was nice. It was nice, it was terrifying, it was the best thing in the world and yet the biggest mistake of her life.
It was disappointing.
Or was it?
She has to keep moving, she can't stop to speculate on what she doesn't know, because she's Donna for God's sake, and she knows what's important, she knows herself. She knows now that there's nothing else to be done. She has made her move and now the ball is in Harvey's court. And she hates that, she hates waiting for him because that's all she's ever done. How can this be, how can she make her decision and finally, finally act on it – and yet again be left waiting?
She has to keep moving.
Moving on, moving away (she moved away first, she couldn't wait for the chance that it was a mistake), moving to take control of herself and her life and her feelings and oh God why won't this elevator hurry up? Moving on. She has to keep moving.
Moving out? He has been to her apartment enough times to count on one hand. She can't go home, she can't face the thought of those few, significant times that he was in her home. It's all she can think of, every part of her life is tainted by him. She can't even go back to Mark for a questionable goddamned pity fuck because he too is tainted by Harvey.
She's taking the stairs, it's a ridiculous amount of flights but if she stops, everything stops and she'll have to face everything and right now she just wants to get the hell away from everyone and everything.
She knows herself and she knows that despite her lies to herself she'll never know exactly how things could have been if she hadn't taken too long to face her feelings.
He doesn't know, either. He has never known, or maybe, just maybe he has known all along and that is that he was always happy keeping her at arm's length – after all, she was the one to close the gap, she was the one to leave when she realised that their working relationship wasn't working, she always has been the one to keep moving. Maybe she stepped too far – he has a girlfriend! So now she has to fix things by stepping away.
But she knows. She knows that she couldn't put up with the chance that there could be something there and not act on it, that it was time. She had to know whether it was even possible for her to finally get rid of her conflicting thoughts and doubts and fears and do something.
She knows now that she can. And she did. And she's still here. Still moving. This hasn't broken her. And that's why she's so calm. She has spent so much time wondering about what would happen if that happened and now she's moved past it and life hasn't stopped, she's climbing down the stairs and it's like nothing happened.
But it happened.
She's going down the stairs because if she took the elevator she would reach the bottom and then she'd have to keep moving but she doesn't know where to go or what to do, so in the meantime she's just going to keep going down the stairs. She'll reach the bottom.
And then all she can do is go up and away, they've hit the end of their journey of uncertainty. There are very limited directions for their relationship to take now, it either happens or it doesn't.
Because it finally happened.
She has to keep moving because staying still has what she's done for the past 12 years and that has meant nothing but not knowing. Not being able to know because of Scotty or he's her boss or Mark or Stephen or Paula. Staying still means getting no answers and getting no closure. Staying still means pretending that nothing is fine and not rocking the boat because of fear. Too afraid of moving forward for fear of the unknown.
She knows she cannot wait anymore.
And yet she's waiting for a taxi, waiting for her own mouth to tell the driver her destination, waiting for her mind to shut up (why didn't she wait for him to say something, anything? Why did she leave without knowing exactly how he felt?). Waiting for the courage when she gets out to keep moving, she knows what she did, she knows what she wants, she knows where she stands regardless of his feelings (he has a girlfriend!).
She knows what happened.
And now she waits.
She doesn't know what she's waiting for, or why she's here. She kissed him because she had to know what happened if she finally stepped up and it finally happened. But she doesn't know what happens next.
She's been pacing the hallway for half an hour because she can't go inside. But now she stops.
He's standing still. Time has passed, he's unsure of how long it's been, replaying it in his mind. With every replay it distorts, making it harder and harder to believe. He doesn't want the moment to end, but it did and all he has left is the memory that he wants to keep close to himself. He doesn't want to move in fear that he'll somehow change what happened.
But the moment's over and he's standing still. Alone.
He can't move because that means going home and facing Paula and facing what happened but did it really happen? He's standing there alone in his office and he can't be sure that Donna was there and that she kissed him and then she left and he was standing still and he didn't move and now he doesn't want to move. The moment he moves from that spot, he either has to face that it happened right there or the spot disappears and it didn't happen and he doesn't know what's worse.
Did it really happen?
That's the thing, he really doesn't know, because he doesn't trust his mind or his memory, not when it comes to Donna. He's never been able to act rationally when it comes to her.
She would know. She always knows.
Does she, though?
Does she know how much it broke him when she left? She did eventually, the panic attacks happened and she knows about them and she's smart enough to figure things out. But he never told her, he acted petty and then pretended everything was fine and then it was fine because she came back and things went back to normal and they didn't move forward because he liked staying where they were and he never thought about the fact that Donna never did.
She always wanted to move forward, to do more, to have more, and he always fought back because he wanted things to stay the same but he never said why. He couldn't risk that things would change and that he could lose her and that he'd have to move on because he hates moving on. She left the DA's office and she left her job as his secretary and she left his office after kissing him and each time has left him more and more confused.
Did it happen? Did she leave him again? Or did he leave her? Did she really kiss him? Did he kiss her back?
Did she leave because he didn't kiss her back? What really happened? What if he kissed her back and she left anyway?
Was it his fault? Was it his fault…again?
Is it his turn to make something happen? Does he want something to happen? If it does, then this time he can be sure of it, because right now he's not sure about anything. But Donna seems sure. And she knows what happened.
He wants to go to her house, but beyond that he doesn't know what he wants because that means moving forward and he likes things as they are, where he and Donna kick ass and she supports him and he tries to protect her and they're not together because Paula's his girlfriend. Oh God.
That's his excuse. There'll always be an excuse.
He wants to go home and sleep and pretend it never happened (because maybe it never did). But that involves moving. He has to make his mind up – is he going to move?
He finally takes a step. Nothing has changed. He's still in his office, he's still alone and the memory hasn't somehow vanished from his mind. Whatever happened, he still has the memory, false or not. So he takes another step.
He waits for the elevator because it takes less time to wait for the elevator than to take the stairs all the way down. He stands still in the elevator but the earth is still turning and he is going down. Modern mechanics make it possible for this to happen without him moving. Donna has made it possible for all these years to have a girlfriend and yet still have her there too. He never moved to change it because he never needed to change it.
But it's up to him now. He decides if it moves from here.
He wants to talk to Paula, but he can't because she knows about Donna and yet she knows about Donna. And still she trusted him. He trusted that it would be okay, that things wouldn't be messy and yet here he is in a hell of a situation without even moving. He wants to talk to her but he can't and yet he has to. She doesn't know what happened and she deserves to know and yet he's not sure he can tell her what happened because he's still not sure himself.
The questions will come. And the answer to all of them is that he doesn't know, but Donna will know. Is there a way he can get Paula to ask Donna without it being weird? No. It's weird. It has always been weird. And he's always been okay with that.
No, he should go home.
This is stupid. She can't just stand in the hallway all night, if she doesn't want to go in then she can leave and go get a coffee or something. She's been pacing the hallway but she hasn't gone any further. It's time to leave. But now she stops.
The elevator opens and Harvey is so close to his apartment and safety that he can almost taste it and even if he doesn't know what happened he knows that the sun will rise in the morning and he can deal with everything then.
He steps forward. And then he stops.
He's here.
She's here.
This was a mistake, she needs to leave, she can't believe she's back where she started, waiting for him to do something. They can pretend it never happened; they did it once, they sure as hell can do it again.
He knows now that it happened.
She wants to step forward but she can't move.
They've been stuck in their ways for so long. Donna kissing him finally pushed them out of their rut, out of pretending that everything was fine and that it's not like that. It's his turn to make a move.
He takes a step.
He knows what it means.
She needs to go home right the hell now but in a way Harvey is her home, and no matter how far she goes she can't change that.
And he's walking towards her.
And he's smiling.
She realises that she knew absolutely nothing before.
But she knows now.