A/N: Thank you so much for all the positive comments and reviews, here and on twitter. I really hope this figment of my imagination will live up to your expectations in the chapters to come.
This story wouldn't be anything without my cheerleader and beta Stefanie, I love you.
Chapter 2
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If I'm lost, will you clear the mists until I'm found
And take me home again?
If I cry, will you dry my tears?
Show me everything's all right
.
.
Harvey finally ushers Donna into his apartment around 7 am. They spent hours at the hospital and they are both dead on their feet. In fact, Harvey feels like he could fall asleep right now, in his hallway, standing up. But he forces himself to keep putting one foot in front of the other for her.
A very understanding doctor had examined Donna thoroughly and came to the conclusion that she has a broken wrist and suffered psychological consequences from the traumatic events of the night. The wrist meant a trip to the radiology department and a very long wait at the plaster room. Donna had fallen asleep in between and Harvey felt awful when he had to wake her up only to endure a painful procedure to put the broken bone back in its place. She is now sporting a bright red cast and a sling. The fracture would take between a week and three to heal. The mental scars however would probably take much longer. The ER doctor had also kindly provided them with some sleeping pills and a bunch of leaflets about victim support groups, dealing with traumatic experiences, and more.
Harvey tosses all the leaflets on the counter and heads straight for the bedroom where he unceremoniously dumps the holdall on a chair. Donna quietly follows him but stops at the threshold.
He kicks off his shoes and sits down at the edge of his bed, peeling off his gloves and scarf. Looking at her rigid form in the doorway he pats the duvet next to him and tells her, "Come you must be exhausted."
She isn't moving so he walks over and unzips her coat. She lets him without saying anything. Carefully he pushes the coat from her shoulders, making sure he doesn't touch the cast. He unwraps her scarf and together with his own stuff he quickly brings it all over to the closet where he keeps his coats. When he returns, she is still rooted to the same spot.
He closes his eyes for a second. He hates seeing her like this. But she needs him and he can do this. He hates that he hasn't been able to protect her from this but whatever she needs in the aftermath, he'll give it to her.
He grabs her good arm and steers her in the direction of the bed, pushing her down to sit on the edge. He unties her sneakers and tosses them aside.
He looks up at her. "You're already wearing PJs so we just need to get that cardigan removed and then you can crawl into bed. I'll take the sofa."
He starts on the right, pushing away the cardigan, revealing a bare shoulder.
"No," she says, shaking her head.
Her voice startles him and he jerks his hand away. "Are you cold? Do you want to keep it on?"
But she shakes her head again. She had been staring at her feet but she slowly raises her head to meet his eyes.
"I'll take the sofa. It's your house and you need to go to work and that requires sleep and I need to go to work and—," she is rambling and he interrupts her.
"Donna, it's 7 am. I'm not going to work and you are not going to work for a while. You need to heal. That works best if you sleep in a decent bed."
"I can't kick you out of your own bed," she protests.
"I insist," he says firmly.
He runs off to the kitchen and returns with a glass of water and a medicine package, placing it on the nightstand.
He kneels in front of her again. "You are going to take a sleeping pill and sleep here. I'm going to call Louis and take a nap on the couch." His voice firm, not tolerating another protest. "Now shall I remove the cardigan?"
She nods and he removes the item ever so slowly. Being extra careful when it has to go over her cast.
"It's fine. They gave me the good stuff, I don't feel anything," she assures him.
He hands her the water and pill and she takes them willingly. She lies down and he crouches down beside her, stuffing a pillow under her arm to keep it elevated.
"I'm right behind those doors. Call me if you need anything at all. Promise me."
"I promise," she says and tries to find a nice position without her cast being in the way.
He stays where he is as she closes her eyes. He feels drained from the whole night. He can't even begin to imagine how Donna feels.
"Go get some sleep too," she mumbles. "I'm fine."
They both know she is far from fine but he lets it go for now and does as she requested. He leaves the sliding doors slightly ajar so that he will be able to hear her if she needs him.
Not wanting to discuss the past night events with Donna in earshot, he steps onto his balcony in the freezing March air to call Louis. As expected their friend flips but is totally supportive. They agree that Harvey will take the rest of the week off to support Donna. Louis also expresses the same worries he has. That Donna will downplay this and will not take the proper time to heal mentally. He vows to take care of her to Louis and himself.
Stepping back inside, he checks through the crack of the doors but Donna is facing the other way and he lowers his exhausted body onto his couch. Within five minutes he is fast asleep.
…
Harvey is stirring in a pan filled with noodles and vegetables when he hears the sliding doors creak.
Donna appears bleary-eyed, still in her camisole top and pajama bottoms, she shuffles to the kitchen counter, sitting down on one of the chairs.
"Hey," he says softly. "How are you feeling?"
Donna grunts.
"Okay, yeah stupid question." Harvey runs a hand through his hair.
She stares at the pan, then looks around at the windows and notices the dusk settling in. "What time is it?"
"It's 5:30 pm. You missed lunch so I figured I'd make something that could be easily reheated for you at any time."
"It smells okay but I'm not sure I want to eat something." She chews on a nail, not meeting his eyes.
He drops a portion of it on a plate. "It's here if you change your mind." He pushes the plate onto the counter and grabs some chopsticks. Then he sits down next to her and starts eating.
Donna places her good arm on the counter and drops her head on it. She sadly watches him eat. He slides his hand over in her direction, lightly touching her fingers. She responds and he tightens his grip. He squeezes a few times but doesn't say anything.
She sighs. She knows he's giving her space to do this at her own pace and she knows she should talk about it, that she will have to talk about it, but today is not the day. So she chooses a safer subject. "When did you wake up?"
"Around 11 am," he says with his mouth full of food.
She raises her eyebrows. "What did you do all day?"
He shrugs. "Louis sent an associate to bring my laptop." He looks a bit guilty. "It is for emergency use only but I got bored after a while. Daytime television isn't exactly interesting." He turns around in his seat to face her. "I took the rest of the week off. I'm here for you 100%."
She shoots him a confused look. "Harvey, I don't expect you to drop everything for me. There's that meeting with Kleinmann tomorrow that we all worked so hard for. You can't take days off now."
"I can and I will," he says firmly.
"But," she protests.
"Louis ordered it before I could suggest it."
She purses her lips.
He looks guilty again. "I know we haven't discussed whom to tell what but I had to tell him the truth. I mean, he's our boss."
"He should definitely know," she agrees. "I'm surprised he didn't show up here himself with that laptop, demanding to see me."
"He flipped alright. But he understood you needed to sleep and don't need visitors right now." He looks her up and down. "You don't, right?"
She nods. He had assessed the situation correctly.
"He's busy enough with filling our gap at the moment. And if you think for one second you need to feel guilty about that, take a look over there." He points over his shoulder to the dining table.
On the table is a huge fruit basket accompanied by an even bigger flower arrangement.
She snorts and Harvey's eyes light up. Trust Louis to be the one to temporarily lift her sadness with his over-the-top actions.
She scoots off her chair to look at the gifts. There is a card with both. The fruit basket is from Louis personally and the flowers are from the firm. She holds up the card. "What did he tell the others?"
Harvey comes up behind her. "For now just that there is an emergency and that I'm supporting you but also the request not to contact you so they know something is up. Samantha already texted me because she read something in the news about your building."
Donna studies her feet, not wanting to show him the tears brimming in her eyes. She made the news, she made the fucking news with a crime story. Images are flashing before her eyes, her heart starts to hammer away in her chest and that is when Harvey pulls her in. He wraps her in his embrace and it brings her back to the here and now. Woody notes of cedar penetrate her nostrils and it smells familiar.
"I ought to thank Louis. No need for grocery shopping. There's fruit in there for at least a year," Harvey mumbles into her hair.
Donna, eager to be distracted, points to the flowers. "They really need some water."
"Alright then." Harvey lets her go and grabs the fruit basket. "You take those." He nods in the direction of the bouquet.
"Do you even have a vase this big?" Donna inquires.
To her surprise, he pulls out a huge vase from one of the cabinets.
Harvey chuckles. "You don't want to know how often Louis has sent me flowers in the past."
"I have an inkling." She smiles. "I was around for all the various stages of his crush on you."
She bites her lip and supports her cast.
He notices immediately. "Does it hurt?"
She shrugs. "A bit."
He holds up the sling that was lying around on the counter. "You should wear this."
"Fine." She begrudgingly inches closer and lets him adjust the strap.
She tilts her now supported arm to the flowers. "Can't do that anymore though."
He switches places with her and she starts stacking the fruit in his fruit bowl. He cuts the flowers diagonally.
"What?" He catches her staring. "Never seen a man cut flowers before?"
"I have. Just not Harvey Specter. I didn't even know you know you need to cut them."
"I have a mother you know. I wasn't raised by wolves."
"There were times I seriously doubted that," she retorts.
"She also taught me to always remember a girl's name, Debbie."
She throws a mandarin at his head but he catches it in time.
They work in companionable silence for a while when Harvey clears his throat. "We need to go to the police station tomorrow. They need your statement." He plonks a few flowers in the vase. "I'll be there the whole time, as your lawyer I'm allowed to."
"Do I need a lawyer?" She looks anxious.
"No, you are just a witness and victim here but it allows me to be there as support."
She nods meekly.
"Unless you don't want me to of course," he blurts. He absolutely doesn't want to pressure her into anything she doesn't feel comfortable with.
"I want you there," she whispers.
He bobs his head. "Then that's what we'll do." He arranges the last flowers and admires his work. He deems it not half bad. "I read those leaflets that the doctor gave you last night," he starts. "It advises you to talk about it. In a support group or see a professional."
"It has not even been 24 hours and you are already shipping me off to a therapist?" she asks in a thin voice. "Wow, that was fast. At least give me a chance to display some whacky behavior first."
"I'm going to let that go because I know you don't really think that you only see a therapist for," he displays quotation marks with his fingers, "whacky behavior."
"No, sometimes it's the therapist that is whacky," Donna mutters.
Harvey turns around. "What is that supposed to mean?" he says sharply, not quite able to keep the annoyance out of his voice.
"Nothing." She stomps away to the bedroom.
"Donna," he calls out but she closes the sliding doors behind her.
He sighs, mentally kicking himself, and resigns to cleaning up the kitchen.
…
It's 10 pm and he feels exhausted. Half of that might be because his total sleep the night before accumulates to a whopping four hours but he's done that before and still whipped up an excellent performance in court.
He knows he's been sitting on the couch the past few hours fretting about Donna. She hadn't appeared again and he's been torn about going after her and giving her space ever since she closed those doors.
The therapist comment had thrown him. A lot has been said and done since he started seeing Paula but ever since he broke up with her, they have been shoving the past under the rug and focused on getting back to normal. Whatever normal is.
He knows it would have been healthier if they had talked about what happened but that is not what they do and he's been all too happy not having to confront his own behavior and the soul searching that naturally needs to come with it.
Evidently, it is not simply forgotten by her either and it occurs to him she might have been waiting for him to address it but of all the moments she could have brought it up, now is not the time to hash this out.
He heaves a big sigh and drags himself off the couch. He gently pries open one door a bit and peers into his bedroom.
Donna has her back to the door, appearing to be asleep, so he tiptoes away and prepares for another night on the sofa.