That which you don't want to hear

by BlueMoonDarvey

Paula said goodbye that day, thinking there were still suspensive dots. Harvey went away and removed two.

N/A: Hello, Luna is here! And as I always say, SUITS and the whole set of characters do not belong to me. But Dravey love does.

Please, please apologize in advance for any grammatical errors this may have because English is not my first language, I work hard on that!

So… this is my way of saying to Paula 'I don't thank you, get out of here', sorry but I can't hold her. I tried not to be so mean to her. [ If you don't feel comfortable with that, you are free to go] The inspiration for this comes from an S7 and S8 talk with the brilliant _cammilu… Thanks infinite, darling for the support to publish my bullshit... ¡Eres la neta, nena! ;)

I have to shut up.

Enjoy…

- That which you don't want to hear -

He flooded his nose with the sweet smell that floated in the air. A fusion of her bath soap, her perfume of red berries and jasmine, the scent of the freshly washed sheets.

He counted her long eyelashes one by one and observed her completely relaxed features.

Why did he wake up with this thought settled in his mind?

For the first time the last two months of their relationship's length, he had never woken up without a smile on his lips, pressed to his redhead's waist, inhaling the smell of her neck, counting the freckles on her nose and watching the rise and fall of her chest in time with her breathing.

On nights when it was so much love that you could almost see daylight, he would hug her chest, almost on top of her, sometimes even inside her, but sharing the same pillow, so she could play with his spiky hair.

Other days it was her stuck on his chest, at what time of the night did she manage to use him as a pillow without even bothering him, lifting his eyelashes to find those hazel orbs still prisoners of sleep, but bright and happy, drove his lawyer's heart crazy in love.

He fucking loved it, he really loved this. He loved her, loved her red hair, her nose, her porcelain skin that blended between his bronzed one. He loved seeing that on a daily fucking basis.

It's not that she hadn't done it today, it's just that the moment she started counting the freckles on her pointy nose, that record settled in his memory.

A certain therapist with pallid, short hair and arched eyebrows.

That caused him to frown.

Then he felt guilt.

Not for thinking about her. Guilt for remembering all the time he'd wasted over the years. Time he'd lost having been with her. Time he'd lost since Donna kissed him and he, instead of moving his feet in her direction to never let her go again, cowardly ran the other way and proposed to a woman he didn't know at all to live under his roof.

Idiot.

At what point did he think it was a good idea to date his fucking therapist?

Immoral.

He will use in punishment that year and three weeks of standing around waiting to reproach himself by now. At what point did she plant a subliminal suggestion and install in his brain that dating her wouldn't be as bad an idea as shockingly shaking a honeycomb in a box?

Stupid.

How the fuck did she hypnotize him into sending all his common sense out the window and telling her that it was her that got him and his mum together, when it was really Donna that got him to do it?

Fag.

He went over the times when Paula didn't use her psychiatric mind-reading to make him feel bad about doing or not doing something. There were three times she was right to speak up and he doesn't understand how the fuck he didn't open his eyes at the time, since all three times the love of his life was involved.

When he told her that of course he had feelings for her, since the fear he had of losing her was only because she was his oldest friend.

When she told him that she loved him. Of course Donna loved him, he knew that, and he loved her, but he had been stupid and manipulative enough not to face it and instead disguise it with work-related concern.

When she told him it was obvious that they had feelings for each other, but only because he had started down the path of his career at the firm with her, they always went hand in hand, and after so long she had gradually become his confidant, that was a naturally occurring thing.

Again: huge idiot.

He sighed heavily. Donna shifted a little in her place, enveloped only by the white sheets, she looked as if she had just stepped out of the Sistine Chapel Vault. He opened his eyes in surprise and blinked twice, he didn't want to wake her yet, his desire to touch her was biting at his fingertips, but right now his mind was a broken record constantly repeating the same word over and over again.

He thanked God it was the weekend and the night had been passionate and exhausting, she was still in the home of Morpheus. Only her incipient, faint snore of exhaustion, which he found most adorable, could be heard in the room.

He placed a kiss on three of his fingers and ran his hand lightly over the fringe of her face. A smile tugged at her rose lips, almost causing him to return to his position and sink with her for a few more hours.

But that thought remained and for some strange reason would not go away.

He slid delicately out of bed, not bothering to take any clothes at all. Being with her made him feel free in every way, at home clothes really meant -0 on the scale of importance. He thought some caffeine would ignite his senses.

He moved his steps in the direction of the kitchen and turned on the coffee pot. He reached into the cupboard to put down the vanilla, turning around he found his phone on the counter and smiled at the images the night before left behind, what started as a playful romp of photos with her unaware, ended with soft pinches to make her laugh, with kisses and touches.

Harvey slid the screen over to appreciate the captures he had taken and his heart swelled two inches.

There was one photo in particular that had his full attention. Her looking straight into the lens, she looked as if she was looking straight into his soul. For some reason they ended up in their underwear faster than they expected. And there she was, looking over her shoulder with a bare chest, hair dishevelled in waves, rosy cheeks and slightly flushed skin. The digital one showed all the way down to where her bottom began.

God, she is beautiful.

She looked so gorgeous and in love. She looked like a woman who was truly loved, a woman who was free and funny; with that ethereal glow that shone from her figure she illuminated wherever she was. He was definitely the luckiest bastard in the universe.

He smiled showing all his teeth, closing his eyes almost completely. He let out a sigh in love.

He made a mental note to print out and put that picture in a frame to put in the confines of his private room, even if Donna refused to have a picture of her half naked somewhere in the house.

So yes, he was doing this.

Please forgive me, my love...

He went back to his phone to open the internet browser. He could never really remember any phone number - including his own - that wasn't Donna's, so he didn't hesitate when he discarded Paula's number.

Apparently it was still the same one, and according to Google's schedule, her office was "open now", he got through there, not wanting to make the call so personal as to look up her private mobile. He drummed the fingers of his free hand on the bar several times as he sat in a high chair, the coolness of the leather on his butt reminding him to hurry up and do whatever it is he's about to do, because he didn't like that feeling when he could do something about it.

He dialled.

The phone rings four times. He was about to hang up except that she would see the missed call and call him back. He didn't want her to come to Donna, not that he was doing anything wrong, he just remembered the hurt that time had caused her and he swore to himself by the most sacred thing that he would never in his life cause her pain again.

Agard's office, good morning. At this time Dr. A. is unfortunately unable to answer you...''

The nasal voice made Harvey's eyes roll. She was still so mechanical, he knew she was on the other end of the answering machine, but she always liked to be presumptuous and leave the whole recording before picking up the speaker.

To make an appointment with the Doctor press one.

To confirm your appointment press two.

To...-

'Oh, come on... enough' thought Harvey, that pressing numbers wasn't true, he was just here to leave his message and that was it.

He pressed any one, nothing happened, which proved his idea of guided dialling and he spoke.

" Hi, Paula. Harvey here," said the lawyer indifferently. "listen, I've been meaning to tell you something for a while now and I'm a fool for not having had the courage before..." he paused "Look, our thing really was-"

"HARVEY!" - shouted the British accent raising the speaker "this is a surprise!" he felt his moles twitch in location to the rhythm of his eyebrows.

Oh fuck yes indeed it was.

Again, what was he thinking, it would have been so much easier to just go to her fucking office and say the things up front.

But no, it wouldn't.

He's still an asshole who, as Gretchen rightly says, sometimes needs to be shaken by someone. He didn't really think there was a chance she'd answer, he thought she'd just hear him out and let it go.

Yes, of course...

And here we are.

"Paula, I-"

"I see you have something important to tell me, Harvey. I'm glad of it all. It's certainly been a long time. Tell me, what has taken you so long?" that voice of hers and her good manners were almost like a drill to his eardrums.

Since when did the London accent boggle his mind, well... when he heard that his redheaded girlfriend's platonic love was that 'gorgeous, dreamy green-eyed Brit' called Tom Hiddleston he felt himself immersed into the Karma.

Then he frowned. This woman's presumption was through the roof. It was as if she was really looking forward to this call. Harvey checked on the watch and calculated that Donna had less than half an hour's sleep left, so he hurried his words.

"Really, Paula... It took me exactly the right amount of time." He said settling back into his seat, "And just this morning I decided I should let you know what I was really thinking that night we broke up."

He swore he heard the woman's mouth open but she didn't make a sound and that was an indicator to continue.

" We were wrong from day one. Because you shouldn't have accepted a dinner invitation from a patient who was completely broken, completely out of his senses and completely in love with another woman."

Harvey always kept his timbre serene and indifferent. It was true what he said to the woman that day, he was hoping that someone deserved her, but that someone was definitely not him.

"Hey, you weren't in love, Harvey. You were romanticizing her, in fact you're still romanticizing her, you won't let her go. I mean, the way you express yourself about her is so..."

Ah, no. No one was going to go above his feelings for Donna. He didn't want to be an indolent bloody wretch, but if she was proving that she couldn't be anything but defensive, go ahead.

"I'm going to stop you on this instant, Dr. Agard. This conversation is not being guided in the same direction as our relationship was." A word Harvey found hard to pronounce.

"Our relationship was so short-lived, because you were more concerned about what you didn't have with her than what you were forming with me." He felt the edge of resentment in her voice and he tensed.

Had he known he would have sent an e-mail? Not nearly as sentimental but more practical.

"Uh-huh. Fine. I wasn't the one who issued a rather ridiculous ultimatum, by the way."

"Are you saying it was my fault?" the blonde said perplexed.

"I wanted to see you again to tell you in person..."

"Of course you did. You called me to say that you were wrong and that after much thinking, you want to see me again." She leaned back on her elbows on her desk and fiddled with the phone cord. "I've wanted to see you again too, every day. Ever since you left. We have so much to talk about..."

Good Lord, was she all right, was she coming on to him?

"You're not understanding me here at all." At this fucking moment, the lawyer's brow was so furrowed he could hold his own can opener with his face.

"Oh, please. That's who you are, Harvey. Tell me who the woman is that you broke up with last night and by this morning you're already extremely mortified." He puffed and raised an eyebrow. "This is your way of getting rid of pain, jumping from bed to bed, hiding your feelings, playing stretch and loosen an idea. I was the only one who managed to get the better of you."

So part of her was right, but because these are things that, as his former therapist, he confided in her. That was for a long time his escape from reality, and being with her only succeeded in evidencing the huge emotional emptiness his heart and soul felt.

She really didn't know he and Donna were together?

Bullshit.

After confronting Faye - and talking about ridiculous things, by the way - Louis' gift to celebrate the start of their relationship was a headline in the TIMES and a cover story in each of New York's most famous magazines. According to their eccentric partner and friend, in the city, all the women who hovered in Harvey's footsteps and all the men who were preying on Donna had to know about their relationship.

The most eligible bachelor had been owned for fifteen years, it's a serious, stable relationship, with plans for the future - they definitely wanted two sons - that this woman is the smartest woman in existence, the mighty Donna Paulsen; the wonderful Chief Operating Officer of the prestigious law firm SLWW, that they are the Dynamite Team and that doesn't plan to ever change.

He gladly agreed because none of it was a lie.

Again, reality hit him like a bucket of cold water and confirmed what should never have been. Instinctively, he crossed his legs and placed a hand on his ribs, to cover the nakedness of his manhood simulating a barrier, he felt her looking him up and down with those inquisitive eyes that manipulated him to her will.

Paula knew they were together, only at some point in the equation she was waiting to make an appearance and test the waters.

"Dr. Agard, let me tell you, you're a hell of a therapist." Her chest released from the pressure it held, "Do you always go against your ethics by romancing your misguided patients towards whom you develop an idyllic, or platonic admiration; only to tell them that in fact, you fantasize about them?"

She didn't know what to say.

"Damn it, Dr. Agard..." He lowered his voice two tones, becoming even more serious. "Your job was to guide me through my behaviours to a truth I was unable to see with my own eyes. A truth I spent years denying, you manipulated my weaknesses against me to make me believe I walked on a thin sheet of ice that could break at any moment."

"Because you have never allowed yourself to be truly happy with anyone else!"

"Your job, Dr. Agard," he continued without listening to her, "was to help me, not to dig me deeper into the damn hole."

" For Christ's name, she was your best friend, only that!"

"She is." Assured the older man.

"Harvey, you don't love that woman. She's too dependent on you and what you really love is knowing that," the tiny woman's voice became the size of her, "our thing happened because these things happen every day."

"What thing?" said Harvey in surprise.

"No, I mean... you're the first time I've broken that rule and..."

"I'm happy, Dr. Agard." He interrupted her, listening to her gasp with the adrenaline of the moment. "Immensely. As I've never been with anyone, ever."

"With who?"

"The love of my life. I'm completely in love with her." He said, as if he was saying the most obvious thing in the universe, because truly it was.

"Do you know how hard it was to watch you go, the real mistake you made was walking out this door."

"The real mistake was going for you and not her." she broke down.

She broke down. He didn't understand why Paula couldn't see that this whole thing between them was wrong, it was like jumping down a rabbit hole he should never have gone down even for fun.

"Who?"

"And I love her. You know it's Donna. You know it's always been her."

There's no one else...

Hearing him say that was like watching every one of his fucking nightmares come true.

"Is this what you call me for, Harvey, to be so fucking cruel?" It was then that tears began to well up in the therapist's eyes.

"No, Paula. I called you to talk peacefully. To apologise for my behaviour in the past, I called you to tell you that yes, ours was a mistake. And it was yours as much as it was mine. But that mistake could have been avoided if you, at the moment when you thought you were beginning to develop feelings for me, had kicked my ass out of the office, because at that moment I had no feelings for you other than a slight respect because you challenged me and few women in this life have dared to do that. I called you to have closure because I was wrong, Paula. I never felt anything for you."

"Harvey..."

"You knew how I felt about Donna from the first day I told you about her. You knew how I felt about her before I even accepted it. And you kept going through with it. I don't know what the hell or at what moment you said any words to defuse the moral ethic that lives in me, but I'm terribly sorry."

"You gave me your key for a reason, I want you to remember that..." she felt the conversation was coming to an end, she didn't know how to keep the man on the line.

"That was another huge mistake that I'm paying for to this day, Dr. Agard."

Every time Harvey answered her something without using her name it was like a dagger to her ego, but she more than deserved it, for harbouring some kind of hope that was more than dead the day he desperately knocked on the door of 206, leaving the loneliness of his heart behind with a kiss.

"The instant Donna handed me back the key, I felt everything that was wrong with this life. I should have reacted at that moment, I didn't want her to give me back that key, because it also gave me back everything it meant, but as always I pushed my feelings aside and acted wrong. I should never have put it in your hands."

"How did you come to all these conclusions?"

The blonde learned at that moment that the keys previously had an owner. Illusive in believing it was an exclusive copy for her use. Then she translated those words as a 'maybe she's not mine, but I am hers and always will be.'

"These are not conclusions, Dr Agard, it's the truth. You can send a thank you card to Dr Stanley Lipschitz, I owe him so much. I've personally put it in my testament."

He made another mental note to make it happen.

"Very well, Mr. Specter. I wish with all my heart that you will be happy in this new chapter of your life." Paula silently wiped away the remnants of what she felt for him, rolling silently down her face.

"It has never been my intention to do or say anything you misunderstand, and I do not wish to hurt you. I'm working on being a better man, but I wanted to tell you how I feel before..."

Harvey rises from his chair and turning around finds Donna's silhouette wrapped in the same white sheet he left her asleep with, hands clasped together covering her mouth and puffy eyes revealed to have released several tears.

"Donna..." He froze in place and dropped his phone, not caring what might have happened to the mobile or how that call might have ended.

"Harvey..."

"Donna I..." he took several steps closer to her and put his hands around her waist, dropping the fabric. "It's not what you think, I woke up this morning having a terrible thought and I wanted to put an end to it. You're -"

"I know" she said closing the space between them with a warm kiss that made every hair on his body stand up, Donna moaned at the sensation, wrapping her arms around his neck and nuzzling the back of his neck. When they parted, their foreheads were pressed together, their noses brushing sweetly against each other.

"How long have you been standing there, huh?" he asked in a mournful tone.

"Long enough to hear you say that you're completely in love with me."

"Yes?"

"Yes. Long enough to hear you say that I'm the love of your life, my big, beautiful idiot." said Donna full of feeling and her bottom lip quivering again.

"I'm into that. I'm both. I'm irrevocably in love with you, I love you. And I'm your idiot."

Cat made his appearance and moved his right hand from her ribs to the hollow of her lower back while his other hand firmly gripped the nub of her ass flesh. She laughed putting one hand on his chest and the other on her heart.

"So you're my idiot?" Donna wrinkled her nose and put a hand on his cheek.

"Really, have you only just noticed?"

"No," she said softly.

"Hey, you know we'll be together forever, right?" he cocked his head to one side, widening his smile more. "You can't just go to the shop and change me or take me back."

Her eyes sparkled and her heart rate quickened, "Harvey Specter isn't proposing to me like this, is he?"

"Yes and definitely not, it's just that you're never in your life going to get rid of me, I really hope you know that."

"Never in a million years." She laughs and takes one of his hands to place it on the beat of her heart, placing her free hand on his chest.

My love... feel, my love" She said in a play on words or maybe reciting a poem, who knows. He was already lost. "They beat to the same compass. I love you, Harvey. You're the most important person in my life."

"And you're that and the best thing that ever happened to me. I love you, Donna."

The emotion was so powerful, she had to cry. "Hey, Honey what's wrong?" he pulled her closer to his body and kissed her forehead.

"Happiness, darling. That's all."

Then they melted into a kiss. They broke apart barely for lack of air... and the person on the other side listened, heard once again the laughter of the woman she once dreamed of being burst out. A war of tickling and kissing was raging in the kitchen of that flat somewhere in the city. When she understood that the situation was about to become more intense, she ended the call, the rest was enough torment.

He was probably unaware that she was still on the line, but hearing that pure declaration of love was just what she needed to get it out of her system and out of her heart. He was right, it was a mistake and mistakes are paid for expensively.

She herself admits to having felt jealousy and resentment for the redhead, she was being very selfish knowing the pair's feelings for each other and keeping quiet about it. It was true: from day one when she saw him cross the threshold of her door as a patient she should have thrown him out, that rush of electricity that ran through her body when she looked at him also sent warning signals telling her to back off, and it was worse knowing that he was dealing with a mountain of unresolved problems: family, work, enemies, friends... And Donna.

Always Donna.

Harvey wasn't for her, they weren't meant to be together in this or any other lifetime, the world disappeared for him once Donna was before his eyes.

"We've made clear the points." Paula pressed the phone tightly between her hands, as a way of calming the pain.

The next time she heard from them was a time later, on the front page, when she read the news of the surprise double wedding celebrated by one of Manhattan's most important firms.

She said goodbye that day, thinking there were still suspensive dots. Harvey went away and removed two.

Now she had to get on with this new chapter of her life.