A/N: This is where you find out what really happened to Donna. I hope you like it! I would rate this as M because there's mention of violence, but nothing is too graphic. Thank you, Cassie (Follow-ur-Shadow), for being so incredibly talented and such a great friend! Thank you, Debbie (anistonrafferty) and Babz (itsbabzbabe) on twitter for all the encouragement!

8

The seas are frozen

When Donna took the flash drive from Samantha, she rounded her table and moved over to her desk to plug it into her computer. Harvey didn't know if he should stick around or leave and looked at Samantha looking for some kind of hint of what he should do.

"I think it's good if you stay, Harvey." Samantha suggested even though it wasn't her place to. But the last times she told Donna about the case, the redhead was really upset, and Harvey seemed to be the only one able to calm her down.

"You don't have to—" Donna started, but was cut off by Harvey.

"I want to. If it's no problem…"

Both women nodded and Donna directed her gaze to her computer that had just finished reading the device. Suddenly, a file was opened, and other files with random names were inside. Donna scrolled the screen until she reached the letter P, since all the files started with people's surnames. She opened a file named "Paulsen, D." and there she could see many videos organized by dates and times. Most of the thumbnails featured her face in black and white. She gasped and peered at Harvey and Samantha. This was it. She would finally find out what had happened to her, and she wasn't prepared for it. But she felt as if she would never really be ready to find out and she might as well get this over with.

She grabbed her laptop, stood up and went for the door. Before Donna could reach the threshold, however, she faced Samantha.

"Get Louis. We're going to the conference room 3," the redhead said.

"He's my lawyer and I think he should see this too," Donna added, feeling the need to explain seeing Harvey's quizzical look.

Harvey looked tense between the two women. He didn't know if he really wanted to find out what happened to Donna during those two years. But he gathered all his courage and followed them to the conference room. Even though he felt he should deal with her case, he was glad Louis was doing it. He didn't know if he could keep his cool facing the people who hurt Donna. If Samantha considered his presence important and Donna didn't object, he figured it would be best to swallow his demons and be strong.

…

As soon as Harvey, Louis and Samantha were seated around the redhead facing the screen of her computer, she fired the first video and began seeing the movie of her life. Black and white images started flashing before her eyes. All the feelings and all the memories that her brain had prevented her from seeing came back to her as if the train of her past collided with her present, wrecking her resolve and ability to think straight.

If I could buy forever at a price

I would buy it twice, twice

But if the Earth ends in fire

And the seas are frozen in time

There'll be just one survivor

The memory that I was yours and you were mine

(Immortal - Marina and the diamonds)

VID_20150226_112330

She went numb, clicking on the first video file that took her back to a time and place her mind had blocked out...

She couldn't believe he just left. How could he admit his love for her and just leave? What was wrong with him? Of course, she couldn't expect anything other than that from Harvey. It took the man ten years to acknowledge his feelings, and it would probably require another ten for him to explain them.

Donna was so mad at him and confused that she hadn't acknowledged a car following her to the bar she met him. She stayed at the bar, venting her frustration, for about twenty minutes and left. She was more than tipsy after knocking down a few drinks and didn't notice a car following her home. And she didn't notice someone approach her at the doorstep of her building. She only noticed their presence when they covered her mouth and nose with a wet cloth that smelled funny. She tried to fight them, but it was futile. Her body went limp within seconds and everything went black.

She woke up to unusual dizziness. She felt drowsy and her pulse was fast, which made her frown and try to blink through the dizziness. Her eyelids were heavy and somehow, she wasn't able to reach her face with her hands. It took awhile for her to adjust to the brightness and get a sense of her surroundings, but once she did, the panic set in.

She didn't recognize the ceiling, nor the dirty silvery walls. She was laid on her back, her wrists tied to a mattress in weird-looking cuffs. Not only did she feel trapped, but also she felt as though she was in a nightmare. In some way she was, although she couldn't wake up from it. She tried to breathe and focus on that. Only the poorly lit area smelled like cheap disinfectant, which made her effort too hard. It seemed she was in an abandoned hospital of some sort.

Her mind was in overdrive and it only got worse when the squeaky wooden door on her left opened, letting an older balding man in a white coat into the room. He faced her and gave her a timid smile that didn't quite reach his piercing blue eyes.

"Miss Paulsen, I see you're awake. How are you feeling?" He asked, stepping closer to her and touching her wrist to check her pulse. He studied his silver watch for some time before letting her go and grabbing a chair from the corner to sit by her side.

"Where am I?" Donna inquired with a strained and shaky voice. She noticed her throat was dry and speaking made her want to cough.

"We chose you to be part of our program because of your innate abilities to read people," the man explained as if the said program was known to her, and as if she should be ecstatic by being 'chosen'.

"Who are you?" She tried to speak with a normal voice and it only made her choke and feel dizzier.

"You can call me Charles. And you and I will work together and will spend lots of time together. But we will get the results that my employers have requested. I always do."

He ran his hand over her head, trying to be reassuring. When he'd finished, she straightened and looked up at the ceiling of the room. He stuck a needle into her arm and injected her with a neurotoxin that gave her temporary paralysis. She couldn't move nor speak. All she could do was watch as he injected her with more drugs and her surroundings went blurrier.

"I want to see the next one!" Donna said, surprising the surrounding people.

"Donna, are you sure—" Harvey began, and reached for her hand. They both gasped at the contact of his palm on hers, for it turned the butterflies in their stomachs into fireworks. She had an urge to pull her hand off of his, but his grip was like an anvil keeping her from drifting into the abysm of her own mind.

"I need this," she stated, already clicking to play the next video.

While Donna's breathing was unstable, Harvey felt empty and scared. He didn't know how he would cope with seeing her being tortured. He could only imagine that this was just the beginning and things were about to get way worse. But he needed to be strong for her. He could crumble later.

VID_20150301_090845

In the back of a van, Charles pushed Donna's gurney upright so she could look out the back windows and he began to tell her a story. "The others were easier to wipe out, but you? We knew he wouldn't let you go unless we left your friends with irrefutable proof that you were really gone."

She then saw Harvey coming from the beach with an empty urn in his hands. They were approaching the van she was in with Charles, but with the black windows they weren't able to see her watching them. Her parents were following behind as Louis, Jessica, Rachel, and Mike were closer to the man she called best friend. All of them looked saddened and cold. Louis' eyes were so red and swollen it looked like he had pinkeye. Her parents were trying to console each other as Mike was almost carrying a sobbing Rachel to the pavement leading to the parking lot. Harvey's body language was hardened, and nothing but sorrow could be read on his demeanor.

"You see, we had to sedate you, lay you down on a funeral slab and make it seem like you were dead. Which wasn't really that hard. Has anyone ever told you how awfully pale you are?" He leered. "Anyhow, we couldn't just offer them a burned body with implanted DNA, as we usually do. We had to prove to them you were undoubtedly deceased. So they saw your real motionless, drugged self and once they left the morgue thinking they saw you dead, we replaced you with someone else's corpse."

She couldn't understand why he was telling her all that information, nor why he was showing her all the people she cared about most in the world suffering. She could only think it was probably some kind of torture to make her give up.

Harvey stopped five feet from the wagon. She couldn't scream, nor make any noises. She just stared at him and the painful expression he carried. He went to unlock his car door, then paused and turned around, hugging Mike who was standing behind him with Rachel by his side. His eyes were closed in agony.

Donna blinked a few times and let the tears run down her flushed cheeks.

"He will mourn and move on. Find someone else to rearrange his schedule, perhaps."

The doctor put a hand on Donna's chin and turned her face away from Harvey and Mike outside to look at him.

"The sooner you accept that you are no longer who you were, the easier this will be," he said, and leaned closer to her expressionless face and whispered, "Donna Paulsen is gone."

Her tears kept streaming down her face.

"I just can't believe they filmed us…" Louis said, shaking his head and wiping his tears with his palm.

"I can't believe you were so close…" Harvey whispered, more to himself, and he held Donna's hand tightly, as if to reassure himself she was really there now.

"I saw you laying in the morgue, thinking you were really dead, but you were alive. You were in front of me and I..." Harvey passed his hand through his gelled hair, disheveling it. "And then you were in the van, right beside me and I…" He closed his eyes while his heart continued beating fast against his ribcage. He couldn't muster the words he wanted. Both times he thought he had sensed her presence. He thought she was there in spirit somehow, but she was actually near and alive. And he didn't do anything. He spent months thinking he was crazy to feel her.

"Harvey, it's okay. You didn't know." Donna squeezed his hand reassuringly and released a quivering breath.

Samantha was farther from the group, and felt their loss, but still considered herself as an outsider, since she hadn't gone through what they had. Yet, she stayed to show the support she could.

Donna just kept staring at the screen with knotted brows and a disgusted expression. She wanted to kill Charles. She was watching her life unfold right before her eyes, and it was devastating. This man psychologically tortured her. She had to watch her friend's and family's suffering now and then, and she felt like nothing could be worse than that pain. Although, she was terribly mistaken.

...

The more bearable of the videos were Donna in a gray jumpsuit laying on the floor of a solitary cell. She would move around, or stay seated for hours. Someone would open a tiny window to let light in and then close it quickly. As they tried to break her down, more drugs were injected into her.

The harder videos were of her being electro shocked. Others showed her being put to sleep by running an IV in one arm with a barbiturate into one arm, only to be shocked awake with amphetamine into the other arm. She would shout and curse at the doctor, but it was visible to everyone in the conference room that she was breaking. Other videos showed her sitting on the ground, staring at the wall and letting tears roll down her face. Sometimes, the doctor would push a plate of warm meat and mashed potatoes, complete with gravy, into the small window of her cell. Donna would get up and scurry on her hands and knees to grab it, but Charles would pull it back just as she was about to reach it, and shove a bowl of what looked like grub or old stew toward her. She would grab the bowl as the window slid shut and examine it before crying and gulping it with her hands.

Donna could remember exactly what that tasted like and even thinking about it made her retch. The sun was beaming through the blinds of the conference room but she just felt cold, which stirred more horrid memories. She remembered being so cold, and some nights she'd wished it would just end. She remembered the pain in her arms every time Charles tested the drugs on her. And worst of all, eventually she'd given up crying. She knew there was no point in shedding more tears, but that didn't mean she would make it easy for the doctor or stop fighting.

Harvey felt like throwing up more times than he could count. He wanted to break every single bone in their bodies, but more than that he wanted to kill them.

...

After watching three months of videos, the sun started to set, and they were still gathered around Donna. Samantha had asked an associate to get them bagels and coffee at some point, which they all appreciated but couldn't really stomach the idea of food as they clicked the next video open.

VID_20150615_150738

Black-and-white Donna was getting injected with a yellowish substance — that they'd since learned, due to Samantha's information, was the drug to put their victims at their mercy — when Charles started talking and walking around her.

" Your name is Julia Thorne. You were born in London on August 2, 1983," while images of a child's birthday party were shown on the screen. She was being bombarded with images and information through a TV screen that was set way too close to her face to be considered healthy. She was chained to a chair in what seemed like a library room. However, despite all the abuse and torture, Donna kept replying, "My name is Donna Paulsen, you ugly bastard!"

Harvey was fighting his fear, but felt immensely proud of her. He knew Donna wouldn't give up easily, and she was throwing a hell of a fight. He could see the annoyance in Charles' expression every time she contradicted him. Yet, seeing her tied to a chair and being tortured was just disturbing. Her hand on his was the only thing keeping him grounded and not punching a hole in the wall.

Meanwhile, Donna remembered starting to lose the battle. She would scream and curse, but she remembered her memories fading. It was like her consciousness was becoming foggy and dimmed.

Louis' eyes were rimmed and reddened. His stuffy nose was really bothering him, but he still refused to get up and do something about it. He was willing to stay there for as long as Donna needed him to. And of course, he had to watch hers and the other's videos, to build the class action. Mike's brain would really come in handy, he thought.

VID_20150629_08320

Donna kept trying to focus on her real life, but with every passing day, the life she had known became blurrier and blurrier. She only remembered feeling exhausted and angry. She wanted to fight and give up at the same time. She hated the TV in front of her and hated the man talking to her.

Charles injected more narcotics into her IV to disorient her.

"Your name is Julia Thorne." Charles kept talking, but Donna was just as defiant as before.

"Really? Then why is my name Donna Paulsen, you sick son of a bitch?"

VID_20150706_190658

"Julia, your father's name was Kenneth Thorne. Julia is who you are"

Charles kept speaking for days on end. His words kept flowing over each other in a montage on the TV. The images were showing several scenarios: a girl at her birthday party, a family laughing at dinner, a dog running - all flashing in front of her as the sessions blended into each other.

"Your brothers, Daniel and Tom… You were the only survivor... You lost your family in a fire..."

Eventually, she stopped answering him.

Donna couldn't stand it anymore. She got up from her chair, almost knocking Louis out of his, and released Harvey's clammy hand. She was sweating, and her teeth were chattering. She felt cold and alone, like she was going to throw up. She saw a black-and-white version of herself, wide eyed and in a trance. A version that wasn't answering Charles anymore. A version that wasn't fighting. She could almost deal with seeing a memory play out on screen, but she couldn't imagine herself breaking and becoming someone utterly different.

Harvey got up from his chair as well, and pulled Donna into an embrace before she could leave the room, without thinking about anything else. He held her tight for what seemed like hours, but only seconds had passed. She felt some sort of strength come back to her and allowed herself to just feel him. They both felt electricity run through their bodies due to their closeness. It felt surreal and too intimate for the audience.

After steading their heartbeats, he disentangled himself from her and released a shuddering breath. No one dared to say a thing when she came back to her chair and summoned the strength to click on the next and final video of her.

VID_20150813_134206

Donna saw the familiar black-and-white picture of an interrogation room, but this time, the camera wasn't on the other side of the mirror. She took the seat in front of the man that was chained to a chair.

She started speaking without greeting the man in front of her. "Listen, you think you're tough, but you're not. You like dogs better than cats, and wouldn't be able to hurt a fly even if it was buzzing on your ear all night. You're afraid no one cares about you and you think your job is useless. You want a family, but you tell your friends you don't."

"How did you know that?" The man asked the expressionless redhead in front of him through gritted teeth.

She got up from her chair, leaned closer to him, and before stabbing him in the stomach with a pocket knife, she whispered, "I'm Julia," as if that explained everything.

Julia turned around and kept looking at the mirror that shielded the three people Donna had learned were behind the glass of the interrogation room.

She stood there for a while when the door of the room opened, letting in a petite blonde woman, wearing a white coat and cream-colored clothes underneath. She was wearing glasses and had her hair pinned up.

"Well done, Julia. We are very pleased." The woman congratulated in a familiar English accent, and led the redhead out of the room, leaving the man behind.

Everyone in the conference room stood still. No one could move, and the tension could be cut with a knife. Louis was the first to speak, breaking the trance everyone seemed to be in, except for Samantha who didn't understand what had changed. Was it because of the man that was stabbed? It couldn't be, Donna already knew that and she was just as in shock as the other two men.

"Is that…?" Louis couldn't finish the question, and Harvey wouldn't have heard it anyway, his stomach lurching into the nearest trash can.

"It can't be…" Donna spoke above a whisper, cutting him off.

After Harvey wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, he finally spoke.

"Yes, that's Paula."

A/N: Don't forget to let me know what you think. :)