Chapter 8
He wouldn't call it panic.
No. He doesn't panic anymore. But something about the way he felt when Donna told him she wanted more brought back all the crushing sensations he felt when he used to panic, like he was one step from it, right on the cusp, because she was one step from telling him he wasn't enough.
If his emotional awareness spread wide enough he would maybe realize that's the connection his mind made: things that caused him a crushing fear; things that Paula helped him come to terms with; Paula.
He hadn't seen her in a long time and after researching his past calendars and the American Psychological Association Ethics Code he finds it's long enough.
He also hadn't really thought about her in that period, if he's honest, but he had before, when he was seeing her in a professional capacity. Paula is an attractive woman who would challenge him and didn't let him get away with his bullshit and something about her then – about the way she would listen and steer him in the right direction and help him understand things, something about the way she understood him – brought him a sense of calm he could really use right now.
So he went after her and asked her out and insisted on it and now he feels like he's made the right choice. He wants to invest in this, to make it work with her because he's been wanting something to work in his life for a while now. A real relationship.
As Paula had pointed out, before he asked her out they had spent about fifty hours together in total and all of it talking about him. He didn't know much about her but he was excited to learn because he feels so much better now, having her in his life, being committed, feeling like he's enough for her. Like he's enough for someone.
He has an entire firm to run now and everybody is at his throat, mad at him for one reason or the other or telling him he's not doing a good enough job as managing partner and not even Donna is on his side anymore. He feels like a goddamn rookie sometimes, having to call Jessica for advice and prove everyday, to himself and to others, that he can do this job.
But not when he's with Paula. She told him she had fantasies about him sweeping her off her feet ever since they met. She cares for him and she trusts him, and he even feels like the more mature person in his relationship sometimes, for the first time in his life, when she gets anxious about their relationship and he has to convince her that it's okay to be scared together and she agrees and falls into his arms.
He feels in command and he really needed that.
Paula is wonderful at numbing down the world.
.
.
Everything feels different now. Jessica is not there, Mike is a partner butting heads with Alex instead of being by his side, he's actually responsible now for anything crazy Louis attempts to pull off and, the most disconcerting thing of all, Donna's not right there outside his office to manage his life because she's not his secretary anymore.
He stares at a picture framed on the wall to the right side of his desk and breathes in slowly, thinking at least she's right there, still handling everything, still keeping the firm on its feet, on her way to making one hell of a COO.
It's already late at night when he finishes up his case and walks into her office. It's about work, as all of their conversations have been lately.
"Donna, before you go home tonight I need you to cut me a check for Holly," he says, entering her office.
"What do you mean? I'm gonna put her in the payroll," she frowns.
"She doesn't wanna work here anymore. Said she'd rather do one-off jobs if at all. Here's the amount."
She takes the sheet of paper he extends in her direction. "I don't understand, I was good with having her."
"Well, whatever you said made her not good with having us." He shrugs slightly, sitting down in front of her.
"Harvey, we're a tight-knit group. We don't betray each other and we don't keep secrets from each other," she poses carefully, explaining her reasoning, which he already knew and doesn't care much about because he trusts her judgment, but the way she puts it now makes a knot of guilt tighten his throat and he looks at her unblinking, hoping she doesn't notice the way he swallows it down.
"I had to find out where she stood," Donna says. "And if the cost of that was her not coming here, then I don't regret it."
He finds her defensiveness slightly amusing. "I understand, Donna. I'm not coming down on you. I just need the check."
She still looks concerned, tilting her head and fixing him with a piercing but somehow still soft look. "Harvey, is there something that you're not telling me about this woman? 'Cause it seems like you've been different lately and… I don't know." She shakes her head, letting her sentence fade into air and it must be weird for her, not knowing something. It definitely is weird for him having her in the dark, but for once he's grateful for it. He never had to tell her anything, she's always just known, but she doesn't know this and something pulls uncomfortably inside him, urging him to tell her about this one thing he hasn't yet mustered the courage to. They don't lie and they don't keep secrets and he's doing both right now.
"It's nothing about this woman." He swallows down the confession that it's about another one. "I just thought she'd be a good addition, but these things happen."
"It's funny. I love my new position but I miss this." She smiles at him and leans back into her chair and all of a sudden it feels like them again, in a way it hasn't felt in weeks and he's been keeping his mind off of it, filling it up with work and his new relationship, but he hates that they haven't been them.
"I miss it, too."
He misses it so much the words hurt his throat on their way out and he can't look at her for a second, but at least he's not alone in the feeling. So he smiles back.
"You want me to pour us a couple drinks?" she offers.
His mouth hangs open and undecided because he needs to go see Paula and he really doesn't think he can stay here having drinks with Donna and not tell her about Paula. "Maybe tomorrow night. I have something I have to deal with right now."
"Okay. I'll cut you that check."
She looks at him, a fond familiarity in her gaze and tight-lipped smile, and he's frozen there, gazing at her as she focuses on filling out the check, and his chest feels tight.
She's been distant and tense and managerial lately and he hadn't even gotten a chance to talk to her about how she's feeling in her new position yet, though he imagines she loves it since just the other day she cut off his joke and told him she never wants back on his desk. She also never misses a chance to remind him she's not his secretary anymore, like he could ever forget that. So, for all he knows, she's never been better.
He goes home to Paula and, like usual, she manages to make him forget about the world for a night, but the next morning his conflicting thoughts and something he makes a point of not labeling guilt are still nagging him so he decides to tell Paula about it and see what she has to say.
The daylight barely filters through his windows, gloomy and gray. Paula's been awake for a while, but he's still in bed, lacking the energy to get up and trying to put his thoughts in order.
She's fully dressed and ready to go out when she brings him a cup of coffee and kisses him, and when he asks her to wait, she seems to think he wants her to come back to bed.
He tells her he hasn't told Donna about them yet and the stiff pause in Paula's manner makes him wonder if he should have told her at all. He explains that there's too much history there and he had just promoted Donna and he doesn't want to create a problem when there isn't one.
Paula thinks those are all excuses, but she's calm and reasonable in that lovely way that placates his anxieties and steers him in the right direction when she suggests he should tell Donna and that he knows that already, before she smiles and leaves him to his coffee.
The coffee is weak, bitter and tepid.
.
.
So he tells her. He finds Donna alone in her office at night and fills his lungs with courage and tells her he's been seeing Paula Agard, and not as his therapist anymore.
Maybe that was not the best way to phrase it but, as it turns out, Donna already knew. She could point out exactly what had happened and when it did and he's torn between a warm feeling in his chest at the realizations that, despite their distance, she still notices him and knows him this well, and another, much colder and uncomfortable feeling he can't name.
He thinks he should probably feel relief at how smoothly the conversation went, but he doesn't. He feels out of sorts and lost and unsettled at the fact that Donna knew all along, that she's happy for him and wants him to tell her all about it some other day.
So he leaves her to finish work and goes to Paula's place to apologize for snapping at her earlier in the evening when she pressed him about telling Donna. Maybe she was right – maybe he liked the thought of being the object of Donna's attention and affection and he wasn't ready to lose that – but she was also completely wrong about Donna having feelings for him because, as far as he could tell, she couldn't care less.
.
.
When Donna eventually tells him that she didn't actually know and that it did bother her, that's when the relief kicks in. He feels like a prized asshole for that, for deep down expecting or hoping she would have some feelings about him being in a relationship with someone else. He doesn't want to upset her, but her complete indifference cuts deep. This, this he gets. He relates. He's always felt the same about her relationships – bothered.
.
.
They go on like that. She told him she got what she wanted when she asked for more, that she's really happy for him, and she's still there, working, right beside him, so even though everything feels so different he tells himself it's just the same.
There's not much time to dwell on it anyway, because only a few days later he and Mike find themselves in the middle of a case against Andrew Malik, whom he has no recollection of ever having met, but Donna does, and she's there to help with the case and to become Malik's scapegoat, as he puts her on the stand and humiliates her, trying to convince the judge that Donna would do anything for him and that he would have her destroy evidence.
He sees how it breaks Donna having to once again be torn to shreds for her relationship with him. A relationship they didn't even really have and that has cost them so much over the years to not have. To keep apart. And finding her in his office later that night, a slow tear running down Donna's cheek in the darkness as she tells him how much she wanted to get back at Malik for what he did, Harvey understands some things he didn't completely comprehend before, things about why it was so important to her to have rules, to not sleep with people she worked with, about not wanting to fall for him… because that's how the world sees secretaries who sleep with their bosses, even when they've done nothing wrong, even when they did everything to deserve their position, even when they're not even secretaries anymore.
He uses what Donna had figured out about Holly Cromwell's involvement to win the case against Malik and he hopes it gives her some comfort knowing he couldn't have done it without her.
.
.
He texts Donna about it, tells her they won the case and goes home a little earlier that night, thinking he deserves some rest. That is until he finds Malik waiting for him in his building, telling him he decided to seek revenge by going after his old mentor and getting Jessica disbarred.
.
.
Jessica's already in his apartment when he walks through the door, on the phone and ready for battle, but she tells him to put down his weapons. She doesn't need to be a lawyer in New York City and the only thing he should worry about now is how much he's going to spend to buy her out and how they're going to spin this to the world since a disbarred name partner would definitely be bad for business.
He pours them a drink before they leave the apartment together; her going to her hotel room, him going back to the firm to start doing exactly what Jessica told him.
He walks to Donna's office when he gets to the firm. It's already late, but Donna has been working late every day since he promoted her, even later than she already used to, so like he assumed, she's right there.
"Good, you're still here," he says, upon entering her office. "Where's Louis? Because I have some news and I think you should both–"
Her lips are on his before he even realizes how close she is.
She wraps her arms around his neck and presses her lips to his, soft and careful. It doesn't feel like their first kisses usually do, in the beginning of the night, when they finally reunite after a year apart and miss each other with a crushing urgency. It feels like the last ones – in the dead of night, when they're tired and soft and know it's going to be their last kiss for twelve long months and miss each other with a nostalgic sorrow.
And he doesn't want it to end, he doesn't want to let her go, his body acting like it's a first kiss of many more and leaning down closer to her but, the second he does, he feels her pulling away, her lips parting from his while her fingertips slowly trace their way down his jawline and he knows it's all going to be over before he even takes a breath.
So he leans closer, crashing his lips back against hers, his hands reaching for her waist and her face to pull her in and keep her close, lips parting and moving against hers with suffocating need until their tongues meet and a little noise vibrates in the back of her throat.
Her body is flush with his and her hands trace their way back to where they were before, where they belong, like a movie in reverse, up along his jaw to the back of his neck and into the short strands of his hair and he feels like she's all the air his lungs need.
He angles his head and cradles her face and keeps her close and kisses her long and deep and there is not a single thought going through his mind except her until she mumbles his name into his mouth. He moves to her neck, sucking the soft skin between his lips, but that was his mistake because then she's calling his name again and gently pushing him away.
He finds her eyes and it startles him, reality snapping back in place even before her raspy voice tells him, "Harvey, you can't…"
She takes a small step back and that's when he realizes he had walked her back and was one step from pushing her up against the desk.
He's paralyzed and confused and lost and turned on as hell and he can do little else other than look at her, lips parted and eyebrows drawing together the slightest, waiting for an explanation for both of their actions.
Her left hand on the lapel of his suit is keeping him away but she still has her right one on his face and her thumb grazes softly over his mouth, like she's asking for something else entirely.
"I'm sorry, Harvey…" she says in the softest of tones. "I just had to know."
And then she side-steps him and walks away, leaving him stranded.
.
.
It could've been a minute or six whole months until he's forced to ignore his racing heart and the tingly sensation all over his body and the desperate need Donna left behind to react.
He walks through the firm's hallways in a daze, focusing on getting home so he can deal with himself, when Louis' voice catches him right by the elevators.
"Harvey, I just got your voicemail. We need to figure out a way to stop Malik before–"
"It's too late, Louis. It's done." He doesn't even glance in his direction, calling the elevator instead.
"What? That's not possible."
"It's a done deal, Louis. Jessica's getting disbarred. There's nothing we can do," he tells the man with exhaustion and clear acceptance of the fact.
Louis, on the other hand, is not ready to accept it. "Well, then we need to–"
"I can't talk about this right now, Louis," he cuts him off.
"All right, look, Harvey, I get that you're shaken by this, and I am too, but if this is really happening we need to figure out how we're gonna handle this and we need to do that tonight."
"I don't care. We'll have to deal with it tomorrow," he says with a finality, thanking god when the elevator arrives.
"Well, wait, what about Donna?"
His heart misses a beat at the mention of her name and he looks back at Louis, startled. "What about her?"
"Does she know what's going on?"
Right. Louis is talking about the Jessica situation, not about…
"No," he says. "She doesn't. And if you don't mind I'd rather you tell her yourself."
It's only when the doors close and he's alone that he's able to fill his lungs with some much-needed air.
.
.
He thought being alone would help clear his thoughts and cool off but when he walks into his apartment with a heaviness in his head and chest and pants, his every hope crashes and burns because he takes one look into his living room and finds Paula waiting for him on the couch.
"Hey you!" she greets.
"Paula?"
"Harvey, are you okay?" He looks so stunned seeing her there, like he had no recollection of her existence, that she feels the need to check.
He closes his eyes and shakes his head, trying to get his brain back in place. "Yeah, I'm okay, I just didn't expect to see you."
She smiles. "You did give me your key, you know."
"I know, it's just been a long day."
"Does this have anything to do with Donna?" she asks, and for the second time in half an hour he lets himself get startled by the simple mention of her name.
"What?"
"Well, you said that man was coming after her. I didn't know how it had all played out."
Relief washes over him along with an inner voice calling him an idiot. "It's over," he tells her. "We got out of it."
"Then let me fix you a drink," Paula says, chirpily, getting up from the couch and walking towards him. "I'll make you anything you want, as long as it involves gin and tonic."
She smiles and kisses him and he cranes his neck down to meet her lips. He places his hands on her waist and she places hers softly on his face and, for a second there, his turmoil settles.
The smile on her face is even bigger when their lips part and she moves into the kitchen to prepare the drinks.
"I'm gonna go take a shower," he tells her. "Be right back."
He locks the bathroom door behind him and when he stares at his own face in the mirror he doesn't get how Paula didn't see there was something wrong. Maybe that's just his guilt talking or the fact that he knows Donna would read every line in his face, the strain in his jaw, and the darkness of his eyes in one instant and know he was not okay. Goddamn Donna.
He takes his jacket off and unfastens his watch, placing it beside the sink, stepping out of his shoes and dragging each piece of clothing off his tired back with his eyes glued to his face in the mirror, trying to read himself and get a sense of what everything he's feeling means. But there is only one feeling he is able to identify.
He steps under the hot spray of water, cranes his neck back letting the water hit his face and wet his hair and his hand finds his achingly hard member.
He squeezes it hard in his fist like he deserves some pain for the erection he shouldn't have right now. Then he groans and pumps his fist slowly up to his tip and all the way back down and squeezes hard again until it hurts when his brain succumbs to the onslaught of images of pale skin and red hair and freckles and lips he can still taste on his tongue.
Her legs around him, her tight warmth and her breathy moans and her mouth around his cock and Donna in his arms and her teeth on his neck and the way she laughs, low and familiar, kisses his mouth and comes for him.
He needs to place his left hand against the cold tiles to gain some balance, his face falling forward until his forehead presses against the wall, too, eyes shut and fist now doing whatever the hell it damn well pleases to his cock while he allows his memories and desires to run through his bloodstream, under his skin, inside his bones because he fucking wants her with everything he is.
He groans and opens his eyes in time to watch the white stream sliding down the tiles in front of him and being washed away by water.
.
.
He hates gin and tonic. But he chugs it all down while he listens to Paula talk about her day, seated by his side on the couch, and his guilt would make him accept a second drink if he wasn't so convinced any minute now his mask would slip and she would see it.
"Hey, Paula…" he says, letting his fingers slip into the silky strands of her hair. "Do you mind if we go to bed? I have a bit of a headache."
"Oh." She straightens up to take a better look at him. "Sure. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, it's just been a rough day. I think it's catching up to me."
"I thought you said you got it all sorted out at work…?"
"We did. But it wasn't easy and it came at one hell of a price."
"What are you talking about? What price?"
He sighs tiredly, rubbing his face with his hand. He's really not up to rehashing the day when the night is burning a hole in his brain. "Jessica got disbarred," he tells her.
"What? Why?"
"Paula... I'm really not up for going through all of this right now. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow, okay?"
"I'm sorry. It really must have been a rough day if it started with Donna being in danger and it ended with Jessica taking the hit."
That gives him some pause, unable to say if she was being genuine or whether there were some ironic undertones to her comment but she smiles sweetly and takes his hand to guide him to the bedroom and he figures it's the former. Irony really isn't like her anyway.
She turns the lights off and slides under the covers beside him and he feels her hand on his stomach, digging under his t-shirt and rubbing circles on his abdomen. He's unmoving, eyes squeezing shut and a real headache starting to form at the feeling of her scooching closer and placing a kiss on his shoulder.
"Maybe I can help you relax a little bit," she whispers, lips reaching for his ear and he doesn't know what the fuck is wrong with him that he almost flinches.
Every muscle in his body strains with the required force of staying still as he places his hand on top of hers just as her fingers inch under the waistband of his pants.
"I'm sorry, Paula, I'm really… not up for it," he tells her and he feels like a goddamn asshole and a housewife faking a headache to get out of sex. The most crushing wave of guilt he's felt all night suddenly hits him and this time it feels a hundred times worse because it's not about hiding what happened tonight from Paula, it's about being here with her after what happened with Donna.
Fucking shit. He's going out of his mind.
"Of course," she says and if she's upset she doesn't let it show. She just snuggles to his side, leaving her arm draped over his stomach and accepts sleep when it finds her.
He's grateful for her understanding and not pushing him to talk or to do anything else and for the quiet calm her breathing beside him brings about.
Paula acts like the medications she used to prescribe him. He doesn't feel the anxiety but, in a realization that only occurs to him tonight, he notes he also doesn't feel much else. She numbs him down. He used to think of it as her greatest quality – calming him, making him forget the world and his troubles and think that this peaceful life by her side belonged to him, made him happy – now he ponders that maybe he feels drowsy and lethargic. He never thought of himself as someone who would settle for anything in life so he doesn't really know why he's always thought her settling him was a good thing.
She always curls up to his side before falling asleep yet somehow they always wake up on different sides of the bed.
.
.
Can't she see? The man she was meant to be with is standing right in front of her face? I should've told her when I had the chance, but that's something I'm going to have to live with for the rest of my life.
Louis' words continue to echo inside her mind all night long, every time fear creeps into her skin that maybe she made a huge mistake kissing Harvey like that, the words are there to remind her that simply letting Harvey go would've been an even bigger mistake and she wouldn't have been able to live with that.
She should've told him sooner, she should've told him as soon as she realized that she…
But the fact is, she doesn't know when exactly she fell in love with him. Maybe it's always been there, denied and buried under fear and self-preservation and the optimistic belief that, even if she did love him, she could move past that because Harvey wasn't ready.
Except sometimes she thought he might be.
After everything they've been through together all these years, side by side as partners, and the way he looked at her, touched her, made love to her, and every time his lips on hers practically spelled what his words would later deny.
Mike was right – they could be so happy together...
She had to know.
She forces some sleep into herself, replaying Harvey's lips on hers until it slips into her dreams.
.
.
She expected Harvey to be angry, of course she did, because that's his first response to everything that catches him off guard and messes with his feelings. She didn't expect him to refuse to talk to her or, hell, even look at her, and she didn't expect his only words on the matter to be I just want you to say, it's never gonna happen again.
That was a slap in the face. It hurt, and how fucking hypocritical of him because she may have started it but he sure as hell didn't seem willing to end it, but she sucks it up and stands tall and acts unaffected by his words, because even though she doesn't regret what she did, she does regret the fact that it uncovered his deepest wound.
She also didn't expect him to spend the day belittling her professionally and she's been sucking it up all day because she understands his anger and knows there's no dealing with Harvey when he's like this, but after he completely humiliates her in that interview, she's decided to make him talk, to stop this before it completely ruins their relationship.
She apologizes to Kyle Clemente much less profusely than she should and hurries to take an elevator right after Harvey, managing to stop him in the lobby.
"Harvey, we're gonna have that talk and we're gonna have it right now."
"Donna–"
"No. It is one thing to take it out on me, but what you did in that interview was horrible and selfish."
That finally makes him stop running and turn to face her.
"Okay, you wanna talk about what happened? Let's talk about what happened, because if anyone knows about selfish, it's you."
"You have some nerve saying that to me when you know I have put you over me for years," she tells him, making an enormous effort to stay calm, the unfairness of his words boiling under her skin.
"I don't care what you've done for years. You knew I was seeing someone and you did that to me anyway. Paula didn't deserve that."
"Since you're bringing her into this conversation, she was your therapist, Harvey! She was supposed to help you, not screw you. And need I remind you that you kissed me back? I may have started it but you sure as hell didn't stop it."
He bypasses Paula's mention and his own fault in the matter, focusing on the thing that has been on his mind all day long. "Why did you start it?"
"I told you, Harvey. I needed to know."
"Know what? Our lines have been perfectly clear for a long time." They have rules, an agreement, they know exactly what they can and cannot do, down to a date on the calendar.
"Our lines are as blurry as lines can get," she tells him, finally letting out what had been suffocating her for so long. Because this is the hard truth Harvey doesn't want to hear – what they have tears down the boundaries of the lines they carefully traced with the force of a tidal wave rushing down against the shore, and it has been for years. They've been pretending they have any control over it, that they know exactly where they stand, but they don't. "I'm the person that you call at six in the morning. Or at midnight when you need someone. We smile, we drink, we flirt, we sleep together–"
"That doesn't mean I want more!" Harvey blurts out, cutting her off with the exact words he threatened to utter for years, unsaid at the end of each of his 'but that doesn't mean…', never telling her what the hell it did mean, but if after everything they've been through that's how he feels, if it never meant anything for him, then she'll say she doesn't want more either. That she doesn't feel anything. That whatever she thought might be there wasn't and put a definitive end to them because this is killing her.
She would say all that, but she doesn't get a chance, Harvey's voice cutting words from her mouth once again.
"For twelve fucking years you've been keeping me away," he says. "I was only allowed to touch you one day a year. And, god forbid, on that day we were swamped with work or some shit or we would miss our shot. Or that you were dating someone then you would just ditch me. And now, now that I'm in a committed relationship with someone else, you decide that it's okay to just kiss me whenever you feel like it?! Do you have any idea how many times I wanted to kiss you, all this time… And I couldn't? I had to keep myself in check? Now you decide to be impulsive?"
She shakes her head and avoids his eyes for a moment, before she says, "Don't be a hypocrite, Harvey. You've been keeping me away just as much. And when I thought things could maybe change between us, that maybe you were ready... you ran away again. I told you I wanted more and you decided to fuck your therapist."
His jaw strains with force, hands in clenching fists at the sides of his body. "You created a hundred fucking rules to keep me away, you made up our agreement and you never gave me the chance to–"
"I gave myself to you everyday, Harvey! So much that you thought we had everything while I was still trying to figure out what we could have."
"Yeah, but you never wanted everything, did you? You locked me out, you told me to forget you, to pretend it never happened, then you decided it was only okay to be together once a year... you said it yourself, you didn't want to fall for me!"
"How can you be such an idiot? Yeah, maybe for a long time I wasn't ready for everything, but you told me you loved me and you could never tell me what it meant. You took one step forward and then pretended you didn't know where you were headed. You were never there emotionally, Harvey. And I get it, it's scary. I was scared too and I should've told you sooner but…"
She's searching for a way to tell him, when he says, "You know how I feel about cheating, you know how it destroyed my family and you still decided to do what you did. You messed with my relationship. You made me the one thing I never wanted to be."
He turns to leave and she has to shout to his back, "It was a kiss, Harvey! We've done more than that. Unless of course you haven't told her that either."
He turns back to her and works his jaw, lips set in a straight line and it couldn't be more clear that he hadn't told Paula anything about them.
She lets her head drop for a second, breathing in and walking closer to him. "You're saying I made you a cheater. Well, let me tell you something, Harvey. You can look down on me and say you don't want more and that's okay. But the minute you start pretending you don't feel anything, you're lying to me. Because when it's the two of us, together, I know you do. So the minute you go to Paula and tell her your heart is available, you're lying to her, too. And the minute you walk away telling yourself how we feel about each other doesn't mean anything, you're lying to yourself. What do you think cheating means, Harvey? You're lying to everybody, including yourself, and as far as I'm concerned, even if I hadn't kissed you last night, you're not being loyal to anyone."
That knocks him out completely and he can't say anything else.
"The feelings are there, Harvey, and everyone can see it except you. I see it but it's not enough. It's not enough that I know you do. I need you to know. I need you to willingly love me."
He's left unmoving and barely breathing while she turns around and takes the elevator back to the fiftieth floor.
.
.
The sense of déjà vu is inescapable as he leaves the building for the second night in a row drowning in his thoughts and feeling like a goddamn cheater, except this time Paula is not the one tormenting his guilt as he faces the possibility he might have been disloyal to Donna.
He needs to tell Paula what happened. He's been making so many mistakes but this is something he can fix – he can tell her about the kiss – so he tells the driver to turn around and head to Paula's apartment instead of his.
He lets himself in and waits for her on the couch, looking up when her voice cheerfully greets him.
"Hey! I didn't know you were coming over."
"I didn't know I was, either, but I got in a cab and ended up here..."
The reticence in his words tips her off and she eyes him suspiciously.
"Paula, I need to tell you something." His tone is stiff and the way he glances at the armchair beside him tells her this is a serious conversation. She sits down and waits for what he has to say.
"The truth is, I should've told you the other night, but I was afraid."
"Harvey, what's going on?"
"Donna kissed me."
"What?" she croaks.
"I walked in to talk to her about Jessica getting disbarred and, before I knew it, she kissed me."
Paula's silent for so long it makes him start to sweat. Then she swallows and leans back into her chair and all of a sudden he has a different kind of déjà vu because this conversation starts to feel a lot like one of their old therapy sessions.
"And what did you do?" Paula asks, her tone not as much calm as it is cold.
He's here to make things right because he's not a cheater and the way to stop being one is to start being honest, so he has no intention of hiding this from her. "I… kissed her," he says.
He lets her take her time processing the information and her voice is in the same steely tone when she finally says, "You've obviously always had feelings for her, I can't say that surprises me."
Harvey's eyes widen at her words and he doesn't know what to say to that. She had said some things before about Donna having feelings for him and how he liked being the object of her attention and affection, but he thought she was just jealous, not that she actually thought there was something going on between them, much less that he had feelings for Donna, because what the hell would Paula be doing in a relationship with a man she thought had feelings for someone else?
"I'm surprised something like this hasn't happened before," Paula continues and the way he twists uncomfortably in his seat and his mouth parts in silence makes her understand, "Something like this has happened before, hasn't it?"
"Paula… you know some of my history with her. We've known each other for years and…" He doesn't really know how to explain who Donna is to him. How to put everything they are in a one-line definition that would encompass everything his own mind can't wrap itself around and, at the same time, not hurt Paula more than he already has. How can he look Paula in the eyes and say Donna is the most important person in his life? It just seems cruel and, at this point, it doesn't even matter. "What I mean is, it has happened before, but not since we've been together."
Paula bites her lip to try and keep the tears collecting in her eyes from spilling over, avoiding Harvey's gaze.
"Paula, I'm sorry this happened and that I didn't tell you before, but I don't want to lie to you. You know me and you know how I feel about cheating, but Donna made me see that I haven't been the most honest in this situation from the start so–"
"You talked to Donna about this?" Paula snaps.
"Yes..."
"So let me see if I understand this. You kiss another woman, lie to me about it, refuse to spend the night with me, and then the next day you're having a discussion about your feelings with her?"
"Paula, it wasn't like that…"
"Well, then tell me how it was, Harvey, because it seems to me that's exactly how it went."
He can't really reply to that.
"Look, I haven't been completely honest with you either," she says. "Your relationship with Donna… it does bother me. You having another woman in your life that you care about, it does intimidate me, because I've been in this situation before, Harvey."
"What are you talking about?"
"I told you my ex had cheated on me. But what I didn't tell you was that it was with a woman he worked with and, just before it ended, it felt like there were three people in our relationship. Well, with you it's worse because it has felt like there are three people in our relationship from the start. We wouldn't even have met if it wasn't for Donna leaving you. You didn't want to tell her about us, even on our first date you were distracted talking about work and her, Harvey! And now this."
"This isn't fair," he says, because even if right now they find themselves in this situation, he did give this relationship a real shot. He committed to her, he tried to...
"I'm just being honest with you, Harvey. You're too connected to her and you can't let go. This is not healthy for you. It keeps you from committing because you keep using whatever it is that you have with Donna as a substitute for a real relationship."
"We have a real relationship!"
The ambiguity in his words doesn't go unnoticed by Paula. She wants to believe he means them, but he could just as easily have meant him and Donna.
"I'm sorry, Harvey. I hate that I feel weak, and insecure, but the truth is, if you keep working with Donna, we won't survive."
"What? You're asking me to fire her?" he asks quietly, almost scared of even uttering the words.
She looks at him, stern and determined, even through the sadness in her eyes, and it's clear that's exactly what she's asking of him even if she won't flat out say it. It leaves him stunned.
"Paula, Donna and I have worked together for twelve years. You and I have been seeing each other for three months. You think I'm gonna fire her?"
That was not the response she expected from him, her lips parting with shock and burning humiliation. She blinks and her tears finally spill from her eyes.
"I'm sorry," she says with a pained irony. "I thought what we have meant something to you."
The shame of letting his first thought out without sugar-coating the words makes him flinch. He never meant to hurt her, but he keeps doing it again and again. He clenches his jaw and rubs his hand over his eyes.
"I'm sorry, Paula, that's not what I meant. It did mean something to me, but I can't give you what you need."
"Meaning you can never let go of Donna," she says, her voice tight with strained sobs. "Well, if that's the case, then why are you even here, Harvey?"
To break up with you.
That was his intention from the second he realized his feelings for her weren't what he thought they were, but their conversation took a turn he didn't see coming with Paula negotiating terms to save a relationship he didn't want saved.
He doesn't say it but his silence, heavy with awkwardness, tells Paula enough, her mouth gaping and more tears slowly spilling over.
"I can't believe this. You are giving up what we have together for what you don't have with Donna?"
"You don't know what we have, Paula…" he says, tiredly.
"Yes, I do. You have an unhealthy codependency to her and she uses it to manipulate you because she's in love with you, Harvey, and you're the only one who can't see that!"
His first instinct is to tell her off, to defend Donna, but then… Paula's words sink in.
She's in love with you
His eyes go out of focus and he's hit with a crushing stream of realizations, Paula's voice low in the background against the noise of his walls breaking down.
"I believed in you, Harvey. I was the only one who ever saw who you were. All your baggage, all your flaws… and I accepted you for it."
Except she wasn't.
She only knows as much as he told her about himself and he did it because she was his therapist. Donna knows all of him, even the parts he couldn't see. She knows him in a raw, fundamental, instinctual way and she's the only one whom he has ever trusted all of himself to. And she doesn't just accept him for it, she loves him for it.
It's not easy finding someone like that in this world and she is the only one who…
"You keep compromising for her," Paula says. "And you're going to end up alone because of it. I am here for you, Harvey. You get to come home to me and you're throwing all of that away. What are you going to do when you feel lonely? When you have a big victory or a terrible loss and you have no one to run and tell?"
Donna had been there for every single one of his most crushing losses and none of his most important victories would've ever meant anything if she hadn't been there, right beside him. She's the only one he ever wants to run to and she has been for as long as he can remember.
"Paula, I am so sorry, but I have to go."
He stands, eyes lost and heart hammering inside his chest, opening his suit jacket, ready to run and fight and do anything to be with Donna and to tell her he finally sees it, that he's been an idiot, that he never thought she loved him like this because she is perfect and he's a goddamn idiot who couldn't even understand that the fact that she has always been his everything meant that he loved her with everything he is.
"You're just leaving?" Paula's indignant question rings behind, but he's already at the door.
.
.
He races through town and curses the traffic. His heart pounds as if he was physically running to her, adrenaline depriving his brain of oxygen and when he knocks on her door in a haste and she pulls it open to gaze wide-eyed at his overwhelmed expression, standing there, bared at her doorstep with his heart on his sleeve, he takes a long-overdue breath and realizes his mind is completely empty.
He doesn't have a playbook, a script of all the things he wants to say to her, a list of things unsaid piled up throughout the years that sit heavily on his chest and a long stream of I love you and I'm sorry I've been an idiot and why didn't you tell me and remember that time? I wanted it to last forever and I still do forever and you and I love you.
But goddamn Donna. She can read every line on his face and glint in his eye and maybe even the waves of heat emanating from his body and she knows. She knows all the things he's not saying and she has known for a while now, but what's different this time, what she sees for the first time that wasn't there before, what changes everything, is that now he knows. And she can see that.
One. Two. Three. Slowly stepping back and her eyes change from wide to dark. She's letting him in but she needs him to take the first step.
She needs him to willingly love her.
And he does. A faraway thought of how his love for her has always been there, in each fiber of his being and beat of his heart, coursing through his veins as the most fundamental part of him, as he strides forward with urgency and crushes his mouth against hers.
She kisses him, arms lifting around his neck and hands touching his face and then he has no thoughts at all anymore, lunging them both against the wall, lifting Donna on top of the foyer table, pressing himself into her.
He's been in love with her for so long and neither of them really knew it before, so he wants to make her feel. With every bite of his teeth into her neck and stroke of his hands over her body and his tongue invading her mouth. He wants her to know.
Donna weaves her fingers through his hair and scratches her nails down his back as she pants breathily in his ear and he can't get enough of her. He never could.
She holds him and kisses him like he's her whole world and she melts under his touch, giving herself to him like she's always been his.
Their gazes meet somehow in the haste of their need and time stands still. His eyes dark and riveted on her, breaths heavy, and their palms pressing against each other. Donna's fingers slide between his like a statement and a promise and that's how he wants to be for the rest of his life.
She guides him like she'd always done. She takes his hand and guides him to where he wants to go, guides him to become the person he wants to be. Guides him to her bedroom.
She turns and gazes up at him and he's hanging heavily there because this is too monumental, it's her and it's the beginning of the rest of their lives and he shouldn't know how he wants a story to end when it's just beginning, but he does, and he figures this started twelve years ago so it's not like he's getting ahead of himself by thinking he's going to love her forever.
Then he kisses her, because she's looking at him and seeing everything he's not saying and he can't really make more than five steps without kissing her.
He kisses her all the way to the bedroom and kisses her while she slides the tie off his neck and while she unbuttons his shirt. He does stop to pull her silky top off her body, Donna raising her arms above her head to help him as his hands slide over fabric and skin, then he wraps his arms around her and kisses her while he lays her down on the bed.
He's on top of her, lips brushing and sucking down her neck and chest to keep her pinned to the bed while he pushes both their pants down, throwing them to the floor.
"Harvey…"
It's the first actual words they've said to each other since he got here and he's always loved the sound of his name on her mouth, so he kisses her to taste it, too.
Donna scratches her fingernails down his back, the long expanse of smooth, shivering skin and muscles contracting at her touch, and she pushes his boxer briefs down his legs with hands and feet, Harvey's hands moving around her body prompting her to arch her back so he can unhook her bra.
He catches himself staring into her hooded hazel eyes as he cups a breast. "Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?" he asks, and god, he hopes he did. It's been all this time thinking she's the most breathtaking thing he's ever laid eyes upon and he would hate himself if he had never let her know that. He kneads it gently, and then finds her lips as his thumb flicks her nipple.
Donna moans quietly into his mouth and reaches between their bodies, stroking his cock, her knuckles brushing Harvey's stomach as she presses him against her lower belly. He's hard and swollen, the head leaking moisture while her thumb circles his tip and Harvey bites her lips.
His fingers hook into the sides of her underwear and he pulls it down with her help, lifting her hips and kicking it out of her feet, and they smile at each other when it gets tossed to the floor along with the rest of their clothes. He has her lying naked beneath him, breathing hard and clutching his neck while his hand strokes down her body.
Sliding to her side, he keeps one of her thighs locked between his legs, keeping her from shifting away as his hand makes its way from her breasts, down her stomach to the heat between her thighs. He brushes his fingers over her lips and Donna whimpers at the feeling, holding his face in her hands and kissing him deeply as Harvey's fingertips reacquaint themselves with each wet fold, avoiding the spot where she wants him the most.
"You know what I just thought?" he asks in a hoarse mumble against her lips.
"Mm… That you'd like to hurry up?" Donna says, trying to grind her hips up into his hand, but the weight of his leg doesn't let her.
He chuckles. "No. That I love how I know you so well, that we have been together all these years… That I know exactly what to do to have you moaning in my arms."
And she could call him a smug idiot, even if half-heartedly, but he sinks two fingers inside her and swipes his thumb around her clit and she moans so there's really no denying his point.
His body draws closer to hers, pressed against her side with her thigh between his, the fingers of one hand weaving through her hair and the other thrusting inside her while he kisses her, tongue licking into her mouth.
He kisses down her neck, sucking softly at the swell of her breasts, his tongue leaving a wet trail to the hardened nipple he sucks into his mouth.
She can't help but let out a small, delirious laugh along with her moans. "You're so proud of yourself, aren't you?"
He raises his head to meet her eyes. "Well. Yes. I like knowing what you like, what makes you whimper and moan," he says and as to deliver some evidence he presses the heel of his hand down over the hood of her clit, prompting her to exactly the reaction he described and he smirks happily watching her.
His fingers thrust in and out of her, thumb rubbing her clit while he kisses her neck, the only sounds in the room coming from the wet movements between her legs and Donna's parted lips.
"I love it, too," she breathlessly tells him when he meets her lips one more time.
"Yeah?"
"I love our story. I love knowing that we've always been together."
He kisses her, tugging on her bottom lip, the movement of his fingers inside her growing faster and faster until she has to turn away from his kisses so she can moan and take a breath and come in his hand, tensing around his fingers and in his arms, before melting, wet and beautiful.
He rolls on top of her quivering body, licking at his fingers before his lips meet her collarbone, tracing a path of kisses and swipes of his tongue down her body until his head is between her legs, adjusting Donna's thighs over his shoulders before she has even caught her breath.
"What are you doing down there?" she says when she remembers speech, weekly attempting to pull him back up. "Come back here."
Harvey slides his tongue up her slit, tasting her orgasm and humming in approval.
"I'm not done showing off for all the things I know about you," he tells her with a smile to his voice.
"You've always liked gloating…"
"I love gloating," he says, lapping at her pussy.
She huffs out an indignant and aroused humph.
Harvey uses his thumbs to spread her open, gazing down at her swollen lips and clit, glistening wet and sensitive. The tip of his tongue gently traces her folds before he lets his open mouth come in contact with her, closing and sucking her in, feeling Donna's thigh contract around his neck as she grabs his hair.
He goes back to softly lapping her until she relaxes, her arched back flattening down into the mattress and Donna trying to slow her breathing, but he presses his tongue inside her and her efforts are in vain so she lets it all go, moaning loudly.
She's too sensitive from her orgasm and he does know what he's doing to her so this is surely not going to last. He slides up to her clit, sucking it inside his mouth and not letting up. His eyes search for Donna's to find hers shut closed, her mouth open and her head pressed back into the pillow in agonized pleasure, one hand clutching the bedsheets and the other firmly in his hair.
"Ohh, fuck, Harvey, fuck–"
She bucks her hips and comes in his mouth and he keeps kissing and licking her all throughout it, prolonging her pleasure that drips wetly down his chin until she begs him to stop.
She's a beautiful, quivering, breathless mess when he lies on top of her and he wants to kiss her but he really thinks she needs to breathe so instead he kisses her neck and tells her he loves her, not realizing that would have an even more devastating effect on her shortness of breath.
Her fingernails dig into his back and she shivers beneath him and he notices her pause, lifting his head from its place in the crook of her neck to look at her.
"What?" he smiles down at her.
"Did you just–"
"–tell you I love you? Yes."
She blinks up at him, her eyes glistening in the darkened room, and when she takes a breath, it's a shaky one, her chest rising with a feeling too vast to fit in it, and she lifts her hand to cradle his jaw, lips softly finding his, kissing him slowly with a tenderness that makes his heart leap and ache.
His fingertips brush her cheekbones and strands of her hair and he feels happier than he ever thought he could be.
"Thought you said you knew that already," he teases with a timid smirk.
She smirks and rolls her eyes and, yeah, maybe she did, but knowing it has never made her feel as happy as she does now, hearing it and feeling it, the certainty of their feelings for each other being out in the open, stripped bare and unequivocal. That's something else entirely.
"I love you, too," she whispers quietly, feeling his mouth widen in a smile against hers before he kisses her again, softly at first, and then deep and determined, tongue sliding against hers.
"Good," he mutters and grinds down on her, his achingly hard erection pressing against her lower belly begging for attention, with him having insisted on keeping tonight all about her to this point, and she moves her hips to adjust him between her legs and grinds herself up towards him, pressing him between her sensitive lips as her arms wrap around his middle.
Harvey groans, meeting her movements and the slickness of her, before he leans back, gripping the backs of her knees, lifting and spreading her legs. One of his hands circles her ankle gently, thumb brushing over the bone there, while the other brushes the tip of his cock up and down her pussy, barely pressing against her opening in a tease.
"Hm… Harvey…"
He leans and trails down kisses towards her inner thigh.
"If you really knew me that well," she says at the tail-end of a moan caused by him rubbing her clit with his cockhead, "you'd be inside me already."
Harvey laughs against her skin and sinks down into her as he lies over her body to catch her whimper with his lips.
Her legs are bent at the knees and raised around him, pressing against his sides as he pounds into her and she says something about shit, right there and he knows it's there, that's what he's been telling her, that making her feel good is his biggest talent – but he still loves hearing her say it.
She bites on his lip and scratches her fingernails up his shoulder blades and the back of his head and squeezes her walls around him.
"Fuck–" he grunts. "You're amazing."
He finds her arms behind his head and wraps his fingers around her wrist, moving her hands up over her head, one and then the other, holding her wrists pressed against the mattress while he thrusts in and out of her and deep inside again, the entire weight of his hips pressing into her, and she arches her back beneath him and moans, not able to do much more than take him, her mouth open against his.
He loves her. Every noise she makes and the way she tugs on his bottom lip. The way she'd been his compass for twelve years and still loved him when he got lost. Her walls gripping him tightly inside her and her thrashing under him. The way she moans his name and her scent on the crook of her neck. The way she makes his heart thunder wildly inside his chest.
His hands slide up from her wrists, palms pressing down against hers as their fingers weave between each other, gripping each other tightly as he pounds into her with a force and up and just right and she's coming all around him and he's coming inside her and finally coming home with a series of hoarse grunts.
Then it's all quiet.
He doesn't move. He'd always liked staying inside her just a little while longer after he comes and she'd always known that. She loves that.
He moves his weight to his forearms, pressing them around her as her fingers slide away from his, moving to his back, softly stroking his skin.
Her mouth is red and thoroughly kissed and he leans down and presses his lips to her, breathes her in before he lets their lips part.
"Say that again," she tells him and he does with no hesitancy.
"I love you."
She smiles, happy and his, gazing at his mouth and he tells her, "We're done with rules, okay? This is it. We're together now and I will kiss you whenever the hell I want to, which by the way, is all the damn time, just so you know."
Everything's changed, but not really. It feels like they've always been together, because they have, but now they have everything and there's this content sense of inevitability, like all roads would eventually lead them here because that's where they were meant to be. And it doesn't matter if he took a right, and she took a left, and they got a little lost on the way, because their roads intersect at each curve and they're meant to crash into each other's arms and souls.
She laughs but her eyes glisten wet when she says okay and lets him kiss her again and all through the night.
.
.
the end.
AN: I don't even know how to end this. I hope it was worth the wait. Thank you to each one of you that reviewed, tweeted, DMed, smoke signaled, and gave me so much love for this fic. I never expected so much and I'm incredibly grateful and honored. This fic and your response to it has been so special and I'll cherish it forever.
Thank you to Blue and Yvonne for their huge help in making this chapter the best it could be.
I've been writing Darvey fics for two years now and I can't think of a more special way of saying goodbye to this couple that means so much to me. Thank you for the support to each one of my stories in this time, thank you for becoming my friends, and thank you to Blue for being by my side from the start and making me a better writer.
All the love,
Elle.
❤️