MILK
"Crap," she mutters with a sniff as she stares at the last roll, only two pieces of paper left on it and then back to the basket that usually houses the spares in her bathroom. Empty too.
This has never happened before, not once in all the years she's lived on her own, and yet here she is, nearly twenty-eight, sick for the first time in her life to the point where she had to stay home and she ran out of toilet paper.
"Crap," she mutters again, immediately being overcome with a coughing fit. She pulls the blanket further around her frame and stares at her reflection in the mirror. Her hair is flat, her nose red and runny, and her overall complexion is nearly nonexistent - she's probably never looked worse, and it's a hundred per cent in line with how she feels.
Shuffling back to her living room, she contemplates her options, going out and getting the damn necessity herself out of the question. For one, he'd kill her if he found out she left the house, and second, she's sure she doesn't even have the energy to go down with the elevator.
Dropping down on the couch, she shivers and rolls over, groaning loudly as her entire body aches. She spots her mobile phone on the coffee table, it just lays there, and yet the solution to her problems is screaming in her face - he had told her not once, twice but three times that he would manage and that if she needed anything, anything at all, she could call.
The thing is, she's not above calling. Okay, maybe she is because she's Donna, and she's the one that's supposed to have everything in check, so to call him for toilet paper of all things… It's just a lot.
It takes another hour before she finally reaches for the phone, the longer she keeps thinking about it, the more she feels the need to actually go to the toilet, and well that would be an even bigger problem.
"Are you okay?" It's the first thing he asks, and she groans at the slightest hint of worry in his voice. She says she is, an obvious lie she's sure he can detect, but he doesn't comment on it. "Is there something I can do for you?"
"Could you get me some groceries?" She asks.
"Sure," he answers, and she hears him getting pen and paper on the other end of the line. "What do you need?"
"Milk, orange juice, a box of green tea, some fruit," she lists from the top of her head. "And uhm.. toilet paper if it isn't too much trouble?"
"I'll stop by after work, okay?"
"Thanks, Harvey."
"Anytime."
When her doorbell rings, it's decidedly not the end of the workday, but she's too tired to call him out on skipping work to look after her. She simply opens her door and tries to give him her best smile.
His eyes widen the second he sees her, a bundle of blankets with just her face peeking out, and when she tries to reach for the bag, he swats her hand away. "Back to bed."
"But-"
"But nothing," he orders, shooing her as he closes the door behind him. He follows her back to the living room, where she lays down on the couch again. It's not her bed, but at least she's resting again so he lets it slide.
She hears the ruffling sound of the paper bag being emptied. "Ooh," she calls out, "I can do that."
"Donna," he sighs, giving her a stern look, and to his surprise, she doesn't have a rebuttal ready, and he doesn't wait for her to come up with one, either. He places the fruit he bought in the bowl on the table. There are still some grapes and apples in it, but it doesn't click yet not until he enters her kitchen and places the milk and orange juice in her fridge. Finding both items, unopened versions at that, in it already. The same goes for the tea, so he just places the box in the cupboard with her other stock.
All that's left is the toilet paper, and he figures he can leave that at its designated spot, too, so he lifts the packaging and makes his way over to the bathroom. His suspicions are proven right then, and he chuckles to himself, eyeing the near-empty last roll on the toilet paper holder. He shakes his head as he restocks the holder and places the remaining ones in the box where he knows she hides them.
When he comes back to the living room, he finds her asleep on the couch. He doesn't wait for her to wake up, and he never comments about the little bit of information he's discovered about her now, stores it away for future - possible blackmail - use.
It's eight years later when he brings it up, after she gives him shit about having done all the groceries for their dinner with Mike. He laughs, shakes his head and says: "To be fair, I do buy my own toilet paper."