Prompt: Four times that Harvey made coffee for Donna + one time she made coffee for him — requested by Jane (aSnackForAlways).
I realize that the premise of this prompt is similar to my Valentine's Day fic (The Gesture), but I was able to work it into canon in a way that was less obvious, which I had fun with.
Huge thank you to Heather (kalingswifts), Sam (swancharmings), and Liz (bentface) for some stellar beta work on this one. I'm so grateful!
—
coffee and contemplation
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one.
"Vanilla's in the—"
Holding the bottle up, Harvey throws a glance over his shoulder with a grin on his face.
"How long did it take you to find it?" Donna asks, moving to stand behind him. She presses her lips to his bare shoulder before resting her chin there, fingers moving to the front and trailing up his abdomen. She can feel a chuckle vibrate through him.
"First try."
"Mmhmm."
"You don't believe me?" He challenges, turning to face her with a steaming cup of coffee (vanilla included) in hand. Giving it to her, Harvey leans in and leaves a quick peck on Donna's lips.
This is new but natural, like he could have kissed her in her kitchen a thousand times before.
It's early, too; just past six and neither of them have had much sleep, if any. Not that they wanted sleep. Being together like this for the first time in more than twelve years was all consuming, all encompassing, and if it came down to a choice between rest or rediscovering the pieces of each other that had been left to fading memory for years, the latter won every time.
And, as it turns out, "We have to get some sleep" had lasted, at most, two hours total before they were at it again — Donna's fingers threading through the short hair at the base of his skull as Harvey's tongue drew maps and constellations down her body.
"I'll always believe you," Donna replies, taking a sip from her cup before placing it on the counter. She catches the question on Harvey's face before he can ask. "What?"
"Taste okay?"
"Yes, why? Oh no, you poisoned me, didn't you? This is really going to put a damper on what we just did."
Laughing, his grins softens, "No. It just never tastes the same to me when it isn't made by you."
"Harvey, it tastes exactly the same."
"What, no, 'I'm Donna, I make everything better'?"
Inching closer, Donna winds her arms around his neck and looks up at Harvey. There's something about this — about the contrast of her hair against his shirt that she's wearing as the very early morning hours creep in that's breathtaking. Earth shattering, even. "I think you already know that I do."
"I do," Harvey replies and it's all he can say before crashing his lips into hers once more, what begins in softness quickly becoming intense and urgent as his hands move up her waist and under the white shirt where they settle on her ribs.
Donna lets him guide her backward through the kitchen and toward the bedroom, too lost in each other to think straight and it's a wonder that they make it there without accident. The coffee remains on the counter where she left it, their current need less for caffeine and more for each other.
two.
The fluorescent lighting is too bright and Donna squints, splashing water on her face as she rinses the taste from her mouth. The lack of girls' nights since Rachel left must have affected her tolerance because one night out with Katrina has her more hungover than she's felt in years.
Her head is pounding, clouded with exhaustion, and the sound of Harvey shuffling into the bathroom nearly sends her into overdrive. But his hand is warm on her shoulder and he allows her to settle against him, passing a cup of coffee Donna's way.
A godsend, this man.
"If you need to take the day," he whispers into her hair, "I can cover for you with Faye."
"No, I'll be fine," Donna replies with a shake of her head as she brings the cup to her mouth. "Thank you for this, by the way."
"Always. You know, I don't think I've ever actually seen you hungover before."
She smirks, "Second Christmas party at the firm. Although, you were pretty out of it the next day too."
He looks clueless for a second, thinking back to the many Pearson Hardman parties that they'd spent mostly holed up in his office with a bottle of scotch. The first had been not long after what they still dub the other time, and he remembers how badly he had wanted to break her rule that night. The second… it takes another minute but now Harvey remembers. They'd traded scotch for a bottle of tequila stolen from the party, the hangovers in question the reason they'd ruled it out after that night.
Harvey chuckles at the memory, gaze meeting Donna's. "The tequila."
"Mmhmm."
All it takes is the look on her face and the thought of what he couldn't do back then and he's leaning in, ready to kiss her before Donna stops him, "You might not want to do that, I haven't even brushed my teeth yet."
He does it anyway and she kisses back, laughing against Harvey's mouth. Hopefully the water and the taste of coffee have masked the contents of her stomach but if they haven't, he doesn't let on.
Donna readjusts her position against him once they break apart, sipping from her coffee as another thought crosses her mind, "Something to think about if we ever decide to get pregnant."
"If?"
"When?"
"I… I'm not surprised by if or when, I just wasn't sure that that was something you wanted."
"I don't know," she says, looking up at Harvey with a smile and a hint of something in her eyes, "I kind of like the idea of a little Paulsen-Specter taking the world by storm someday. I can see it."
He doesn't have to think about his answer, it was on the tip of his tongue the second she acknowledged the topic at hand. "Me too. It would have your hair."
"Your eyes."
"Or yours."
Donna shakes her head, "No, definitely yours. And it would probably be blonde too. Oh yeah, I've seen your baby pictures."
"Strawberry blonde?" Harvey counters.
Her laugh is followed by a yawn and they're both suddenly reminded why they're here; leaning against the bathroom counter with Donna's head on his shoulder and a half empty cup of coffee in her hands.
"First we're not engaged but not not engaged and now we're talking about making babies? What has gotten into you?"
"You," Harvey says matter of factly. "Hold on… babies?"
Rolling her eyes at the "you", Donna leads him back into the bedroom, "Who knows, we might like the first, or maybe we'll have to test that strawberry blonde theory of yours out. Now," she stops, "I'm going to lay down until the room stops spinning and you're going to refill my coffee."
three.
It haunted her — both of them — that first time. The day that he lost his dad, the words falling from her lips and the look in his eyes, the way that she couldn't reach out and hold him like she desperately wanted to. Donna thinks about it still, more often than she'd like, regretful of the distance when he needed her but Harvey has told her that even just her presence was enough back then. It was everything.
Now though, she doesn't let go. She has to be the one to tell him that his mother is gone, too, and it breaks her even more to see him crumble. All that she can do is hold him and deep down, the ache from the first time that she should have done this feels unsettling.
It's passed two in the morning and he's been on the phone with Marcus half the night, making arrangements, even talking to Bobby until both his brother and his mother's husband had to hang up. But now he can't sleep, his mind is going a mile a minute though he's not moving at all except that he laces his fingers through hers and draws mindless circles on the back of her hand with his thumb.
Donna curls halfway in his lap, sipping from the cold cup of coffee in her hand — one that's technically his, that he'd made while she answered a call from Louis — and she can't stop watching him, watching a thousand different emotions flash through his eyes. Emotions that they both know only she would be able to read.
After another minute, he swallows, voice thick with grief, "I wasted so much time."
"Harvey…"
Harvey looks down at the cup in her free hand and then up to her, "I wanted her to meet you. You know, it's stupid… I mean, it's not stupid, but all that I can think about is how much I wanted her to meet you because I wanted her to love you as much as I love you."
Taken aback by this, Donna's eyes soften, "You wanted her approval?"
"No," he shakes his head, "I… I think I wanted her to know that I wasn't alone all those years, that I had someone who makes me better. I wanted her to love you because, Donna… you have no idea what it's like to love you."
She's seen him cry before. She's seen him break; not just when his father died but when she told him that she loved him and then left him, when he blamed himself for Mike, tonight. Seeing him like this though — tears in his eyes swimming with more trust and love than she has ever known from anyone, it's like seeing the deepest edges of his soul. All that Donna knows is to protect it, to protect him.
"She knows, Harvey. I'd like to think that she knew you were finally at peace with yourself after… after everything and…"
Donna's voice trails off, lost in everything that he is — everything that she loves. She shifts in his embrace to place the cup on the coffee table before cupping his face, gaze locked on his in a hold that he has had for years and will have for the rest of their lives.
four.
There is something to be said about marriage, Harvey decides. Or maybe it's marriage to Donna that makes all the difference, not that much has changed in the two days since they made it official. Really, for the most part, everything is the same as it has been in the months that they've been in a relationship, even similar to the years spent at each other's sides — the permanence that was there from the start just as deeply ingrained as it has been for years but there's something… something more that he can't quite put a name to.
It's one thing to know that he's hers but another to have tied his life to hers with all that he is and all that he has.
But then again, maybe a little piece of them has always been like this. Married.
Harvey stands at the kitchen counter but his eyes are on the couch — more accurately, his eyes are on Donna on the couch where she sits curled up with a book in her lap as the sunlight cast over the city streams in through the window. He thinks that this is definitely the best view he's ever had; the view that's all her. Being with Donna is so much more than sex or touch, or his need for her. It's about his ability to see her like this and love her like this, and the way that she completes him like nothing else ever will. He's allowed to get lost in the feeling that erupts in his chest in the quiet moments and marriage means that he'll do this for the rest of his life.
The physical reminder of permanence on his left hand carries more weight and holds more value than he has ever known. He wouldn't trade it for the world.
Dropping a splash of vanilla in the cup of coffee in front of him, Harvey's gaze finds Donna's across the room. She smiles softly at him and he smiles back, wondering if she might be thinking the same — that marriage isn't so different from who they are together but lazy mornings on the couch, bare feet on hardwood floors, and rings on their left hands feel surreal after all this time. Like an even greater sense of belonging.
Harvey walks the cup over to the couch, sitting on the back of it with a quick kiss pressed to the top of her head as the mug meets her hand.
"Mmm," Donna murmurs as she drinks from it, flashing a playful look up at him over the rim.
"Huh?"
"It tastes different."
He looks back quizzically.
"Tastes like it was made by a husband."
"Yours," Harvey chuckles.
Her reply is in her movement; Donna's other hand finding his on the couch, fingers twisting the ring that she put there with a knowing grin.
plus one.
"What is this?" Harvey laughs, taking a cup of coffee from Donna's outstretched hand. She moves around to the other side of the island with her own plain cup, placing her phone in her bag.
"What?"
He flashes the mug to her, the words Good Morning, Handsome inscribed on the side and it definitely isn't something that either of them brought along in the move.
"We needed new mugs," Donna insists with a shrug.
"We have an entire box of them somewhere."
"Yeah," she nods, "'Somewhere'. I haven't been able to find them."
She isn't wrong. The kitchen at their new place is still a mess and they haven't had time to unpack much of it in the two weeks that they've been in Seattle. Between growing accustomed to the welcome change of pace, trying to balance their decorative styles, and settling in at Zane Ross, their days have been consumed and necessities that weren't absolute from the start remain in boxes.
Not to mention, they're newlyweds and any spare time that they have has been focused primarily on each other.
"We have the fish ones," Harvey says, looking at the horrible glasses on the opposite counter — the ones that he hates, she loves, and they keep because he bought them just to make her laugh while window shopping together years earlier.
Donna gives him a look, enough to make him give up and give in. "We need more than two."
They have more than two, but until either of them find that box, he'll deal with this one and the fish ones.
"Donna."
His voice breaks through the short silence a minute later, her name riddled with curiosity and shock. It takes everything in her not to break out in a smile just then, schooling the look on her face with the best attempt that she can.
"Donna," he says again.
Donna looks up, gaze meeting his with the same masked expression.
"Are you…?" Harvey looks at her with wide eyes, glancing back to the nearly empty mug before his face erupts in a way that she has never seen before.
And that is when she breaks, a smile spreading across her face that she couldn't keep from him even if she wanted to.
He moves closer instantly, taking the mug with him until he's by her side, "You're pregnant?"
The cup in his hand is angled enough so that she can read the words at the bottom, too — You're Going To Be a Daddy written in the same font as the outside and she knows exactly how cheesy it is. Reaching into her purse, she pulls something else out and gives it to him; a white plastic stick with a little pink plus staring up at both of them.
"How long have you known? When did you find out?" Harvey asks, not because he thinks she's kept anything from him and not because he thinks that she might not be sure — if Donna knows, Donna knows — but because their life is about to change yet again and he wants to be with her in all of it from this moment on.
"Officially? This morning," she laughs as tears pool in the corner of her eyes, "I was pretty sure yesterday and then I saw this stupid mug when I bought the test but I waited to take it until this morning because I guess it's recommended and—"
Harvey cuts her rambling off with a kiss and sets the mug on the counter as his hands pull Donna closer. She laughs against his lips, overwhelmed by the reaction and the sensation — overcome by the idea that this is happening now of all times, but also that the timing couldn't feel more right.
"You're happy?"
The expression on Harvey's face says it all. "It's going to look like you."
"With your eyes," Donna plays along, a memory from hangovers' past hanging on the upturn of her own smile. "Maybe even your hair."
"Or strawberry blonde…?" He hints.
"Maybe. Probably."
The timing is perfect. Besides, they've never been conventional; from breaking her rule to repairing his walls, like vanilla in coffee… unexpected or not, all of it just seems to work. They work.
—
Thank you for reading! Comments and criticism are always welcome.