Author's Note: Hi, everyone! I am still writing for this fic, I just happened to get super busy this week. O.O Thank you so much for all the reviews and alerts! They really brighten my very dull life. =)
I do not own Suits.
Chapter 8
Donna enjoyed a luxuriously slow return to the waking world. It felt as though each of her senses were coming on-line on one right after the other. The first thing she noticed was the comfortable warmth she felt she was floating on as though an electric blanket had been thrown on her in the middle of the night. It was especially refreshing after waking buried under the sheets from the chill that was, much to her dismay, frequenting the mornings. She hummed at the pleasant sensation.
Her sense of touch came back next and she noticed a heavy weight on her waist. She could now also sense that the heat was generation from her back. She instinctively snuggled closer to the source and smiled.
She realized that it was still fairly dark out as she just barely cracked open her eyes and noticed the pale light through the window. Curse her internal alarm for keeping her work week schedule on the weekends. But then they had gone to bed fairly early last night…
Her brain finally woke up and her eyes snapped open. She was sharing her bed with Harvey. She let her eyes slide downward and found both of his arms wrapped around her like she was a stuffed animal. His face had to be behind her ear because she could hear him exhaling slowly and softly. It was his body that was generating the warmth and she blinked in surprise when the word to describe this clicked in her mind: he was spooning her.
She was just about ready to grab his arm and move it when she felt him shift and he breathed in what could only be a quiet yawn. He was awake. He suddenly but cautiously began to slip his arms from around her until her fingers snapped around his wrist like a trap.
"Caught you," she said in a whisper.
"Red-handed," he mumbled sleepily as though he were only half awake. Now that he knew she was awake, she felt him relax against her back and his arm go limp in her hand.
"Now, I never expected the Great Harvey Specter to be a snuggler," she said in a low voice as though he were in trouble, but she was smiling.
"You were cold," he replied. "Instead of letting you wake up in the night and lose sleep, I thought I'd help. I've encountered a grumpy Donna before and she's far less attractive and enjoyable."
"Jerk," she replied and elbowed him. She was surprised at the recoil.
"Whoa! Don't elbow my bladder this time of the morning," he said, with the most life so far.
"Then go pee!"
"But it's so warm and comfortable here," he mumbled. "All right, I'm going."
This time she aimed a little higher into his ribs.
She almost instantly regretted making him leave as he slid his arms out from around her and sat on his side of the bed. He didn't seem to notice her shiver. She watched him try to rub his eyes to wakefulness and then he shuffled over to her bathroom and, thankfully, remembered to shut the door.
She closed her eyes, turned over and attempted to doze off even as she could hear the sounds in her bathroom. After what seemed like an age, he came out – after washing his hands, thank God – and pulled the covers up to climb back into bed. Donna immediately turned, wrapped her eyes around him, and curled as close as she could.
"What is this? I'm not your stuffed animal."
"You treated me like I was one. And you broke the rules first."
"I was doing a good deed. You slept peacefully because of me."
"So you did," she conceded. "So consider this tit for tat."
She felt him tense like a drawn rubber band. It took her a moment to find the cause of his reaction and then she ran the last thing she said and her eyes widened. She could just imagine what was going through his mind but anything he could possibly say would toe the line or play with it. Would he dare? He had said many a sexy, flirtatious, and even borderline lecherous things to her but he always drew the line before he could realistically be called a sexist pig. They were alone now so would he?
He would.
"But I never got to touch any tits!"
She gave him one solid slap on the chest, trying desperately to hide the smile threatening to break over her face. "You pig!"
Harvey turned toward her and she was startled momentarily surprised when she realized their mouths were only inches apart. He was frowning at her, but one glance at his eyes and she could see that twinkle when he was amused. "I'm sorry, but you left that wide open! How could I resist?"
Her smile was irrepressible, but she sighed and managed to shake her head as if in disappointment. "There are few who could. You better not say things like that at work."
He huffed at her. "I know better than that."
"Thought I'd offer a friendly warning," she replied.
The conversation faded away with the night sky and they lie in her bed for what felt like an hour or more. Her eyes were cracked open just a hair as she stared at the wall of her room, feeling Harvey's breaths easing in and out slower and slower as he fell back asleep. In many ways it reminded her of the quiet moments they used have in the office before he had hired Mike and she decided it would not be a sin to revel in it for even a moment. The kid was a little too chatty and bubbly for the both of them, but it had still managed to fit into their team dynamic. God help them both if they had wound up with another Harvey.
Harvey suddenly sat bolt upright and she jumped.
"What's wrong?"
He opened and closed his mouth for several seconds, "Umm…well…err…I mean."
"Nightmare?"
"No." He took several deep breaths, closing his eyes, and then he set his mouth in a neutral line and turn to gaze at her with an expression she could not quite follow. Humble, apologetic, and, quite obviously inarticulate; all three things that Harvey never was. So where had this come from? "Donna," he bit his lip and looked straight into her eyes again and said, "I am sorry."
She stiffened and stared at him with narrowed eyes. She could count on one hand the number of times he had literally said "I'm sorry." When it came to something as powerful and delicate as their friendship, he would often clam up verbally and she figured it was a fear of saying the absolute wrong thing. She searched his eyes for the answer to her question before she asked it, "For what?"
"Cameron Dennis," he said, wincing as though the name were painful to say.
She winced with him, but let out a breath of relief. "You mean the evidence?"
"Yes," he replied and he kept his eye contact with her. "I should never have threatened to fire you. I didn't mean it! I was just upset and…"
"Harvey, shut up," she was almost surprised when he snapped his mouth shut obediently and was staring at her both warily and expectantly. "You do not wear guilty very well, so stop it."
He sighed and she could see a sliver of annoyance on his face. "I'm trying to be serious here. I was wrong and I am sorry. I swear that I will never pull rank on you again."
"Harvey!" He stopped talking again but there was clear exasperation on his face. "You have nothing to apologize for."
She half-wished she had a camera right there to capture that look of utter disbelief because she had never seen such a look on his face ever. He was always two steps ahead of his opponents and could see the clear progression of their thought process, but she had completely thrown him off guard.
"You must be joking," he said to her. "I did not treat you well, not like a friend."
"Harvey, I've thought on this quite a bit since that little lecture you gave me in your office and I realized that I didn't treat you like a friend either."
"What? You put your career at risk for me. It was stupid and you should never have done it," he said but she was happy to see some of the old fire in his eyes that she remembered, "but you did it because you're my friend."
"I should have told you about the evidence," she replied. "I knew you'd be upset when you discovered its existence but you should have known. I was a bad friend, because I did not trust you enough to share information that would undoubtedly affect you too. And furthermore," she hurried on when he opened his mouth to speak, "you were hurting from what Cameron almost did to you. I know you. You are loyal to your superiors and your friends even when they may not have your best interests at heart, not unlike how Mike was friends with that idiot Trevor." He shuddered and grimaced at her comparison, but she knew he understood the precise parallels she was drawing.
"I should have told you because you were undoubtedly raw from Cameron's betrayal. You were probably doing a double take on more than just our relationship, but the ones you hold with Mike and Jessica," she said. He huffed again, but she could see the quirk of his lips in a smile. Yes, she had him pegged. "I never should have gone behind your back with the evidence and, in hindsight, I can easily understand your anger after you found out."
There was a moment of silence as he hung his head while he absorbed her words but, very quietly, he said, "I never doubted you. I was…mostly upset at the thought that you risked your career for me. You should look after yourself. I never would have forgiven myself if you got dragged down with me." He nudged her head affectionately with his and she took the opportunity to throw an arm around his shoulder.
"You seem to be under the crazy assumption that I would have a career if you were disbarred. Do you honestly think I could just turn around and work for another lawyer like that?" She asked, snapping her fingers in emphasis and he chuckled.
"Not all lawyers are as bad as Louis," he replied. "Jessica probably would have made a position for you on her staff."
"But it wouldn't be the same. You've spoiled me."
She felt his smile grow wider and he said, "I have?"
"By being such a great boss. Get your mind out of the gutter!"
She finally started to untangle herself from him to climb out of bed and start getting ready for the day. Just as she was about to enter the bathroom he spoke again. "I still don't think you needed to apologize."
"Well, back at ya, Harvey," she replied.
He gave her a half smile before he lay back down on her bed again.
Donna smirked to herself as she turned back around and closed the bathroom door. Their friendship felt like it was back on track and she was surprised at how damaged she only just realized it was before they'd hashed it all out. Now she had a feeling that there had been invisible fractures that neither one of them had seen that may have either spider webbed into a more serious break or would have healed much more slowly. Now she felt like they had settled the matters and everything was casted to grow strong once again, if not stronger.
That had not been the first time that she had been the unintentional target of venting that Harvey had kept bottled up for propriety's sake and this often happened once the building had emptied and they were alone drinking in his office. This was the first time, though, that she had intentionally earned his ire and she had decided afterward that she would try damned hard not to do that again. It was as she had said, he had been hurt at her lack of trust in him. Usually his anger was the result of an irascible client but he always apologized to her through gestures rather than words; dinner out, jewelry, flowers, and even candy. He always seemed to know the perfect appeasement gift and she decided that even as much as his presence seemed to overshadow hers, he still knew her just as well as she knew him.
He was a great lawyer, intelligent and articulate in matters that very often did not require more than a minimal investment. Winning, he had said, was all he cared about. However, once his job required more than just a minimal investment of his emotions, it became that much harder to win. He kept a tight control of his emotions because they would often run away from him before his intelligence could catch up. His very loud lecture of Louis in his office, the time when he almost assaulted one of the murders in the Danner case, and, the most important one, when he threatened to fire her over the stolen evidence – were all indicative of what happened when he lost his famed control. All of those events were a result from when it all became emotionally charged.
Harvey had been trying to tell Mike this from the beginning. You cannot give your heart and soul to every client because that was the fastest way to lose rationality. You can't win if you care so much that your mind was no longer open to the thousands of other versatile paths to winning. Donna honestly wondered if Mike would eventually understand this lesson before Harvey had to literally spell it out for him.
Once she freshened up, she pulled on some wool socks and a fleece pullover from her bedside table and looked over at Harvey who had buried himself in her bed covers. "You need to get up. We need to drop by your apartment today, remember? I would like to do that at a reasonable hour."
"We need to be there before noon?" He asked, cracking one eye open at her and she gave him a look of mixed exasperation and amusement.
"I like getting everything done early in the day. This is also to encourage you to get back into your routine as swiftly as possible. Remember?"
"On chilly days, I rarely get up before noon. This is perfectly routine," he replied.
"What if I told you I was making homemade glazed donuts?"
Donna watched in amusement as he immediately opened his eyes and sat up, cocking his head in curiosity.
"You can bake too?"
She scowled at him. "I can see why all the women fall all over themselves for you. Got anything better than snappy retorts?"
"I could ask the same of you," he said with a half smirk and he reached over to his side of the bed to snatch up his backpack, where he pulled out a pullover of his own.
"Hmmph," she said and turned to stalk her way out of the room.
Just half an hour later, both Harvey and Donna were sitting back at her table munching on a large plate of the homemade donuts and though she hadn't been counting precisely, she thought he might be on donut number six as he looked through the classifieds in the newspaper.
"Damn, Harvey, I thought you were a health nut – never eating more than you should, always being in perfect shape. I'm starting to get a different picture of you."
He rolled his eyes at her, but then he nodded. "Yeah, I may have to run myself to death to get these calories off," he replied sarcastically. "You only thought I was a health nut because I go to the gym three nights a week."
"Wait, you only go three nights a week?"
"That's right."
"How many miles do you run?"
"Three miles at a time and then I do some lifting afterward," he replied as he helped himself to yet another donut. When he happened to glance at her face, he saw what looked like thunderheads in her eyes and he couldn't keep from snickering.
"I hate you! I run three miles every weekday! How the hell do you stay so thin, you bastard?"
"Maybe it's genetics? You should have seen me in high school."
"I'm sure you were a regular garbage disposal."
"We went through two gallons of milk in three days."
"That's a load of crap. How do you stay so thin because I see the gunk you call food that you eat at the office," she said, thinking back to the McDonalds he had mentioned earlier. Not to mention those hotdogs outside the building. How did he stay so thin?
He gave her a flat stare. "You want to know how I stay so thin? I live like a damn college student! I come home from work, usually pretty tired, and since there's only one of me the only thing I feel like cooking are grilled sandwiches. Guess when sandwiches got boring? About ten years ago."
Donna laughed over her Stephen King novel she was reading. "Sounds like you need a woman to cook you a proper meal," she said to him with an amused smile.
He sat up with a mischievous smile. "Is that an offer?"
"Sure, but you have to cook me dinner some time. And it better not be those dreaded sandwiches."
"Done."
They shook on it to make it a proper contract – to which Donna eyed him suspiciously; she knew what had happened between Mike and Kyle – and then he returned to the classifieds, frowning over them. "I think landlords must believe that rich people don't read newspapers. I can't find anything."
"That's because rich people can afford realtors," she replied and to which he groaned.
"I hate realtors. They get on my nerves!"
"That's life, Harvey, deal with it."
"Yeah, yeah. I'll call my contact tomorrow. She was at least tolerable."
"You going to call Mike to move out some of your stuff?"
"Probably. He did offer and I may apologize for going menopausal on him," Harvey said but she saw him roll his eyes. "I'm not sure I'm that sorry."
"Oh yes, nothing to apologize for. He'll only be carrying some of your most expensive suits."
"He knows his ass is grass if anything happens to those suits. I better call him so that he can meet us…"
She glanced up from her reading as his voice trailed off and she saw him staring off into space as though a thought had just struck him. Suddenly he groaned and grimaced as he rubbed his eyes.
"What is it? A sudden onset migraine?" She was pretty sure those didn't exist.
"Might be worse than that. I just realized the building has no power."
She narrowed her eyes at him, "So…?"
"So there's no elevator! Which means we have to climb twenty flights of stairs."
Donna stared at him and then she said, "Maybe I'll be able to skip going to the gym tomorrow after all."
"That settles it, I'm definitely calling Mike. That way we should only have to make one trip," he said and he went to snatch his phone up off the table. "Yeah, Mike, it's me. Care to still help move some essentials out of my apartment? We'll bring donuts."
I hope this isn't too OOC for either of them, but if you're going to have a friendship as strong as theirs, you gotta have your moments of brutal honesty.
I would like to apologize for the lack of substance to this chapter. It was originally supposed to include the apartment, but by the time I'd get done the chapter would probably be 20 pages. Not wholly bad, but I figured you had waited long enough to hear from me, so here you are. Only two chapters left in the story!
Thank you for the reviews and the alerts!
