LIKE THIS CHAPTER 3

Author's Note: Thanks so much for your lovely reviews! This chapter is a follow on from when Donna found that recording Louis had made of Harvey admitting to panic attacks and going to therapy, and picks up the morning after she confronts him about it. I wrote this mainly because I thought what Louis did was so very horrible that I expected much more of a backlash, and then … nothing. Suddenly everyone was friends again like nothing happened, so I decided to fill in the blanks. Well, some of them anyway.

S05E08 Mea Culpa

Things were painfully uncomfortable between Donna and Louis the following morning, all shifty eyes, clipped words, dropped pens, silence. Louis seemed afraid, more than anything, and kept himself to himself in his office. As for Donna, well, the storm of emotions she was dealing with was distracting enough that she couldn't even be bothered with Louis's issues right now.

She was still vibrating with fury, a wild white anger that hummed its way from her chest down every nerve in her body, so that every movement seemed to have a split-second echo of itself, like the seemingly instantaneous shadow that follows a strike of lightning. She had never experienced a feeling quite like this before and the reason, quite frankly, was because for the first time, she had to keep an episode of rage-on-behalf-of-Harvey contained within her.

She couldn't let it out at Louis, because she knew that if she said anything else to him in the near future, it would be, "I quit, go to hell." She couldn't rant to Rachel (or anyone else) because she couldn't expose Harvey's secret. Almost worst of all, she couldn't talk to Harvey about it – even the fruit fly conducting impressive acrobatic manoeuvres to avoid her swatting hand at that moment would have been able to predict his cataclysmic reaction to such news. A reaction that she wouldn't be able to contain since, not only did Harvey no longer view her as being on his team anymore, but she suspected that she was angrier about the whole thing than he would be.

However, the absolute worst thing about the entirety of the situation was how it made her feel about herself. For the first time, she truly felt that she had made the wrong decision leaving Harvey for Louis. At some point a few months back, when things had still been fresh and raw, Harvey had demanded how she could work for someone as duplicitous as Louis. She had still been too angry to listen to much back then, and anyway, he had been yelling at her at her door in the middle of the night.

But now his words echoed back to her, the hurt disbelief in his eyes, and she knew instinctively what he had actually been trying to say. That his true sentiment had been something like: How could you work for someone who would lie and cheat rather than me? Does this mean you think I'm worse than that? Does this mean you think of me as a bad person, after all? Do you hate me this much?

And now, suddenly, she found that she entirely agreed with him. What was she doing? She had declared herself on Louis's team … why? She had known that Harvey and Louis would always clash. Had she really thought that she could manage to support both of them? Or worse, support Louis against Harvey?

She tried to think back to when she had made her monumental decision, but it was all a hazy, miserable blur. All she could remember was feeling distinctly hurt by the realisation that, while Harvey may love her (in whichever way he loved her, it wasn't the point) he still didn't treat her as if he did. He was too afraid, and would hurt her in lieu of hurting himself. And that time, the hurt had been too much. He had declared power over her, and it wasn't the kind of equilibrium she could maintain with him.

They were supposed to be equals.

Louis was comparatively non-threatening. She was both fond and unafraid of him, and he treated her with warmth and open affection. She also knew (and she knew she should be a bit ashamed thinking like this) that she held the power in her relationship with Louis, something that she had kind of needed in her life.

But now …

There was so much more rushing through her head. Harvey … had been having panic attacks? Going to a therapist? Because she had left him? It made her realise that she had had far more power over him than even she had ever dared to believe, and far from satisfying that need inside her, it made her feel sick. What had she done to him? And she hadn't even known.

That vague sense of abandoning him like that and not even realising how much she had hurt him was making her feel even more protective over him than usual. If she was completely honest with herself, at that moment what she wanted to do most was to slap Louis, resign, and hightail it straight back to Harvey, to whom she would confess everything before engaging in an elaborate vengeance plot over too much alcohol. Like the good old days.

Of course, that wasn't really an option for various reasons, not least of all being that Harvey would likely just be angry with her, too (their last conversation had not been a happy one, since she had questioned whether Harvey deserved her help, something which caused an agonised squirm of guilt in her chest), and so she was stuck aggressively typing out emails for Louis, dealing with a good deal more disappointment in herself than she usually did.

Her mind continued to buzz around these thoughts in a progressively more upsetting spiral, when all of a sudden, Harvey appeared in front of her.

"Hey," he said, looking hesitantly polite.

She hated this. Before all this, they would have continued yelling at each other until they weren't, no fight pushing further than the glass of scotch they would indulge in together in the evening. None of this shy hesitation.

"You busy?"

The uncertainty.

"Um."

The secrets.

"I could come back later."

The politeness.

"No, what is it?"

She thought she could even hear the vague hum of rage echoing her words.

She forced a smile.

He half cleared his throat, and muttered gruffly, "I just wanted to … apologise."

She blinked.

"For … what?"

He glanced uncomfortably over at Louis's office, which thankfully was Louis-free at that moment.

"He's gone to lunch," she explained. But then realised that she didn't know that for sure, having been actively ignoring him if at all possible. For all she knew, he had simply gone for a fresh bottle of prune juice and would be back at any moment. She stood up quickly and said, "Which reminds me, I'm starving."

It was grinding, trying to keep her voice light.

"Well, then allow me to treat you to a street bagel," Harvey suggested with a small smile. She could sense how forced it was as well.

"Your generosity is unparalleled."

Keeping up the pretence of two co-workers stepping casually out for a bite, they beat a hasty retreat from Louis's office and only breathed easily once Harvey had paid for their bagels and they had headed for a familiar bench around the corner.

"To answer your question," Harvey said suddenly while she was mid bite, "I'm apologising for putting you in the middle."

He looked at her. She chewed slowly, trying to get to a point where she could swallow with some dignity. He seemed to view this as an opportunity, and continued, "Sometimes it's hard for me to remember that you're loyal to Louis now, and that I can't expect you to be on my team anymore."

Despite the fact that she had known perfectly well that this was what he thought, and despite the fact that she had been actively reminding him of the fact that she worked for Louis now rather than him on a regular basis, hearing him say those words made the ground fall away beneath her.

Managing a daintier swallow than she had expected, considering the fact that she was suddenly floating groundlessly through space, she cleared her throat.

"It's … okay," were the inadequate words that tripped embarrassingly from her lips.

"No, it's not," he said with a sigh. "I've thought about it, a lot, and I know from experience how it feels to be caught in the middle. I just hope you understand … it's habit, for me to come to you when I need help. You are Donna, after all." He turned and gave her a quirky smile, but she could see the unhappiness in his eyes as well.

Panic attacks, therapist.

God, she wanted to be sick. All her walls against him had crumbled to her feet again, as though they had been nothing but dust. It was as though a different Donna, the one from six months ago, had just woken up inside her and was staring around in shock at the new reality she had found herself in.

Denial?

Finally, real words came.

"No, Harvey. We've been friends for a long time and that doesn't just go away, and …"

She thought back to the previous afternoon. When he had asked for her help.

"What did Louis say to make you hit him?" she had asked, concern in her chest.

"Why are you asking me that?" His voice soft but guarded.

And she had said that thing ... that she needed to know if he deserved her picking his side. That, she supposed, had been the beginning. His hurt eyes, him reminding her that she was supposed to know him well enough to know he deserved her help.

Maybe that was why she was feeling so terrible. After all, his words had been the very reason she had gone looking for whatever "dirty trick" Harvey was convinced Louis would use. The very reason she had taken the Dictaphone in the first place. He had been right, and she had been wrong. He deserved for her to take his side and she shouldn't have needed him to prove that.

And it hit her that her rage that morning was probably far more directed towards herself than Louis.

"Are you okay?" Harvey asked. He looked uncomfortable at best.

"No, I'm not," she mumbled. Then she looked directly at him.

"I'm sorry, Harvey. For what I said to you yesterday."

A small crease formed on his brow.

"You don't ever have to prove to me that you deserve my help," she concluded with a small sigh.

A long silence passed between them. She was staring gloomily at a nearby tree. There was an ugly patch of rotting bark that she didn't remember from the last time she had sat on this bench, although that had been a while back. She wondered if the tree was dying.

Finally Harvey spoke again.

"Look, it doesn't matter. We're adjusting, I guess, and …"

She looked at him again. He seemed to be undergoing an immense battle to find the right words.

"And, we just need to find a new … balance. I'd still like for us to try and be friends again."

She blinked slowly. How had talking to each other become this difficult?

"Anyway, if we come right down to it, if I had just listened to you about Esther in the first place, maybe none of this would have happened."

He was trying to smile again and she tried to return it.

"Well, you certainly forgot how bad the fallout of not listening to Donna can be very quickly," she pointed out with a mock disappointed shake of her head.

"All very embarrassing," he agreed, his smile a little more genuine.

She thought how nice their dinner had been, almost approaching normal, and how they seemed to have staggered several steps backwards again since.

"I promise you," she said suddenly, "that I will make sure Louis doesn't pull any dirty tricks."

He looked surprised (Oh, God, now it was a surprise that she would defend him).

"You don't have-" he began.

"I promise," she said, cutting him off with finality.

Of course, he didn't know that she had more or less already found the dirty trick, but that wasn't the point. The point was more in the warm gratitude that shone out of his eyes and the relief that cleared the misplaced frown lines from his forehead.

"Thank you, Donna."

"You're welcome, Harvey."

x x x

"Louis."

He started and looked up at her.

"Donna, I-"

"Shut up and listen to me," she said sternly, but she worked at keeping a slight gentle cadence to her voice as well. The trick with Louis was to find the perfect balance between being forceful and lulling. "What you did, or I should say, what you almost did, was one of the worst things you have ever done."

He looked down.

"But you still have a chance to make things right."

He looked back up at her.

"I know you won't use that tape," she continued, "but you need to think about what the right thing to do is, here. I know you're angry, but you need to be better than this. You need to show me," (and here, she felt her own emotion leak into her voice) "that I didn't make the wrong choice coming to you. That I am working for someone I can be proud to call my boss."

There was a long moment as they stared at each other, Louis's eyes wet with guilt, and hers wet with hurt.

Then Louis got to his feet. "I'll go and talk to Jessica," he said, looking at her, determination breaking through his shame. "I'll call off the vote."

He strode past her, but then paused and turned slightly back.

"I'm sorry, Donna," he added, his voice scratchy with regret. "I know I betrayed your trust, and it won't happen again. I can make you proud."

And he was gone.

And she was left staring out of the window and pondering the fact that after all this time, after everything that had happened, Louis had probably vocalised the dark truth of things right there better than he could have known.

The fact that she and Harvey were still linked, so inextricably, that any betrayal of Harvey would always be a betrayal of her.

x x x

Author's Note: And in a similar theme to filling in blanks, I wanted to provide some motivation for Donna eventually returning to Harvey, because they pretty much glossed over that, too – particularly in terms of how Donna was feeling about everything. But anyway, thanks for reading!