A/N: This is a piece that's been in my head for awhile, and could be seen as a sequel to my other story The Antidote, as it takes place after it, and references it-ish. In this scenario though, my story fully ignores what takes place in 7x10 after Donna's interrogation with Malik on the stand. No kiss occurred between Darvey. Hope you enjoy this random Donna-centric backstory!
"Can I ask you something?" Harvey's voice cut through the tense atmosphere that Donna and Harvey sat in, in his muted office after hours. It was a few days after the Malik incident, after he put Donna on the stand and eviscerated her to pieces. Harvey had wanted to confront and console her that night, but he was juggling his still relatively new relationship with Paula, and he knew Donna wouldn't accept his help just yet, her pride too wounded and her state of mind too vulnerable to accept his comfort. A part of him wondered if the reason he didn't try to see her was because it was always dangerous pairing the two of them with highly charged emotions and the feeling that they had nothing to lose with their walls lowered out of helplessness, with only one another to turn to.
Besides, Harvey wasn't sure how he could've helped console her besides ripping Malik back into shreds or beating him to a pulp. The words "I know the truth, and you know the truth. It's not like that, who cares what they think?" have lost all meaning, barely had any to begin with. It was a stale, commiserate saying that never did anything but highlight how much it was so close to being just like that, yet not at all like that. It couldn't change anything, couldn't change the minds of those who put down Donna for her close relationship with Harvey, couldn't change Donna's feelings of rage, of being belittled and looked over, all because she was a woman trying to dominate in a man's world, while keeping to her true self, following her heart and not compromising on her style, personality, relationships, nor ambitions.
So maybe it was a good thing that he and Donna didn't see each other immediately after the hearing. He had tried calling her on his way back home but he got her voicemail.
"I'm not here right now, so if you want me to call you back, say something interesting."
"Hey…I just wanted to," he exhaled loudly, unsure of what to say next and rolling his eyes at his stumbling state. "I don't know. Be there for you I guess. I'm sorry you had to go through that Donna." His voice petered out to that soft tone that only ever got out of him when it concerned Donna. "I know it wasn't the first time, or the last time you're accused of something like that because of me." He paused as he adjusted himself in the backseat of Ray's car. "Actually, it's more of society's fault, as you always like to remind me, so really the blame is on the patriarchal structure that's been constructed over the years." Harvey chuckled slightly at his explanation, already picturing Donna's response in his head. "Ever the lawyer, finding a loophole to exert the blame on someone else"
Harvey coughed into the phone. "Not that that's funny of course. Look Donna, just… hang in there. I'm gonna get us out of this mess. I'll fix it."
And that was the last time Harvey had brought up the matter, with Donna simply responding to his voicemail with a text saying thanks a few hours later.
Now, it was a few days after and the mess was slightly cleaned up. Semi celebratory drinks at his office were called for. It was one of their rituals of sorts. They were four drinks of scotch in deep, which was the perfect amount to make Harvey feel like his guard was down, tipsy enough to appreciate the warmth and extra bravado his Mccallen has to offer. Donna had a headway start to the drinking, needing one glass of scotch in her, before heading down to Harvey's office. So she was five glasses of scotch in, and had just finished a giggling spree to show for it.
"If I say no, will it really stop you?" Donna teased in response to his rhetorical question of asking her something.
"Has it ever before?" He sent her his trademark grin as she chuckled into her glass, perched on the edge of his table, one leg over the other, while his office chair gravitated towards her. He leaned his body slightly forward, bringing his chair even closer to her proximity, as she gestured with her hand for him to get on with it and ask his question.
"You're so good at everything you do." Harvey's was tinted with awe.
"That's not a question, that's just a statement." Donna interrupted him smugly. Harvey rolled his eyes, but the soft smile gracing his face told her he wasn't annoyed, more so amused by her action.
"As I was saying," Harvey took a quick swig of his drink before finishing his thought, "you were the best damn legal secretary there ever was. You acted more like an associate than an assistant. You've inadvertently played the role of COO around here for more than just this past year. You were like the head of HR, and an acting manager, putting out fires left and right, keeping my ass in line along with Louis's which I know is no easy feat."
Donna's eyes narrowed suspiciously at his avalanche of compliments "True. What's your point?"
Harvey ignored her, continuing his speech. "And I don't know much about acting. But I know you're amazing on stage, and I've seen you fool people with your skills around here for years. Hell, you don't graduate from Yale Drama school with no acting chops to show for it."
"Harvey." Donna's voice was sharp and agitated, knowing him, he was setting her up on a pedestal only to slam dunk her down back to reality.
Harsh hazel eyes met hesitant yet steady brown eyes. Harvey blinked first, ripping the proverbial band aid off a question he's had brewing for awhile now.
"You killed it at every mock trial stand you've ever taken. You're familiar with the legal world like a fish to water, and you don't have stage fright, hell you bask in the attention of all eyes on you."
Donna opened her mouth ready to cut Harvey off again, when he beat her to the punch.
"So why did you freeze up so much at court when Malik put you up there as a witness?" Harvey's voice was soft, lulling Donna into a sense of safety as he wanted to encourage her to answer his question directly.
Donna did not even hesitate with a response. "Because he was accusing me of sleeping my way to the top! Sorry if I didn't appreciate the personal attack on me and didn't respond in a dignified manner." She snapped back at him, scoffing into her drink as she was about to wiggle off his desk, when Harvey's hand clasped her wrist and kept her in place. His forearm rested against her waist, trying to pin her down gently and blocking her from getting up. She stared daggers at him, her eyes filled with surprised rage at his sudden audacity.
"That's not it and you know it." He said firmly, his jaw clenched in determination. "The same thing happened with Mike's trial a few years back."
Donna rolled her eyes in exasperation "Yes, when my friend's life was on the line based on my statement!"
"And Louis's case a few years back? When he had you as a witness to that petty claims court case involving the coffee cart guy and an expired danish? He still brings it up as the only time the mighty Donna Paulsen let him down with a case, and he still thinks I put you up to it as some elaborate ruse to mess with him." Harvey's forearm and grip on Donna's wrist relaxed slightly at the memory, amused at the recollection. "Not that I wouldn't have done that, and appreciated the freebie mess up to his week you provided."
Donna rolled her eyes at Harvey's reassurance, but her entire body did untense at his subtle form of distraction. She slanted backwards, and Harvey took that as his que to hesitantly remove his hold on her, already feeling a slight disconnect with the space he gave her.
Donna looked down into her drink, trying to avoid Harvey's prying eyes. She didn't think twelve years into their partnership that she'd have any more to reveal to Harvey in his office at a late hour that he didn't already know.
"You know that my parent's marriage was rocky growing up." She glanced up at him once to catch his nod and confused state of mind.
"Well what you don't know is that it had a lot of 'almost' divorces before they finally filed papers when I was a teenager." Donna slammed her entire scotch glass back, needing the last few drops as liquid courage as she remembered the onslaught of fights she was subjected to as a kid.
Harvey almost felt guilty for putting the look of broken horror into Donna's eyes as she recalled something from her past.
"I remember even before my Dad's big screw up with his real estate development deal that left us distraught, they were always fighting about money. Or more so about how my dad never consulted my mom about anything to do with his business. He was always going behind her back with that stuff, saying he didn't want her to worry, taking risks with their money without taking in her input."
Donna's voice almost sounded resentful towards her dad. Harvey was shocked. It was the only time he's ever heard her actually put any blame onto her father's actions in the past.
"They'd fight about that almost every year, my mom threatening to divorce him because he couldn't trust her fully, or because he thought she wasn't supportive, he didnt view her as an equal," Donna waved her hand in the air to motion the back and forth they fought over repeatedly. "But there was this one time, I think I was ten. When they had gone through the proceedings, except they didn't tell me they were trying to get a divorce, they didn't even tell me they were separating. They just pulled me out of school one day, to go to court, to sit on the stand and hear two random lawyers I've never met in my life eviscerate my parents. Then both my mom and my dad got in on it and looked up at me expectantly, wanting me to choose sides."
Harvey blanched at the mental image of a kid version of Donna, with her red hair in plaits and freckles adorning her cheeks as she was forced into a custody hearing blindly, her big confused hazel eyes filling to the brim with tears as her picture perfect family was ripped apart.
"I was just a kid. I didn't get why they were making me choose, or for what." Donna chuckled humorlessly, sniffling a little at the memory. "I just remember the judge asking me to testify and I didn't understand why the weight of it all was on me, why I was practically harassed by strangers about my family life, about my feelings towards my parents. I just ran out of there, I think I had a meltdown or a panic attack because of it all."
Harvey nearly lurched at the idea of a kid going through the intense body wrecking onslaught- physical attack he went through on a weekly basis two years ago. The idea of a lost and confused little Donna dry heaving and shaking in a ball, feeling all alone made him sick.
Donna shrugged her shoulders, as if hearing his melodramatic thought process and trying to brush it off.
"I guess whenever I get on the stand at court I feel like that little girl who was blindsided again. No matter how prepared I am for it all."
"God Donna I am so sorry." Harvey nearly went to squeeze her hand in his when she brought it up to her face to swat a stray tear off her cheek.
"Don't be. Besides, they ended up not going through with it, and next time they did bring up the idea of divorce up custody was an amicable split." Donna shot him a watery smile and Harvey wanted to ridicule her for glossing over her very clear traumatic childhood scars.
But he knew better than anyone what it's like to want to avoid talking about it, so he simply nodded.
"I am sorry for bringing it up though." Harvey added a few seconds later and it earned him a sweet low chuckle from her.
"You wouldn't be you if you didn't keep pressing for an answer." Harvey shook his head at her choice of wording.
"I never knew it was that bad." Donna locked eyes with him. She read the slight look of mystification on his face. They'd shared brief war stories as children of divorce, but Donna had never told him the full extent for some reason. Part of it was because it was so long ago, and her parents have a solid marriage now, they have had one for almost half her life, and she doesn't dwell on the past. But another part of it was she didn't want to share the glaringly obvious flaws in her upbringing that made her who she was. Especially not with Harvey, who always looked like he could see right past her facade.
"I like to keep a sense of mystery alive."
Harvey knew she was kidding, finding a lighthearted teasing way to put an end to their conversation, but he had to physically bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from telling her that she was enough of an unknown to him. "Tell me how your dad won over your mom again after all that?"
At that, Donna's eyes sparkled in remembrance, and Donna easily divulged to Harvey the romantic stops her father had put out to make his marriage work again.