RECAP
Emotional Plot:
Donna's tragic past involving the loss of her young daughter Alice has been revealed after years of secrecy. Donna left her husband Jonathan and former job at Duke-Sanger shortly after Alice's death 13 years ago, adopting a new persona as Harvey's legal secretary.
Now Donna's former life has collided with her present as she faces potential legal troubles related to Duke-Sanger. Harvey has pledged to defend Donna no matter what, even as he struggles to reconcile his love for her with the fact that she hid major parts of her past from him. Their close friendship has become strained under the weight of Donna's secrets.
Harvey was shaken to learn Donna rigged the Russo case years ago to help further his career. This revelation caused him to question whether he ever truly knew Donna. However, upon reading a letter she wrote to him after he left the DA, Harvey recommitted to standing by her side despite her mistakes.
Donna battles intense grief and guilt over losing her daughter. She feels undeserving of happiness with Harvey and afraid to fully trust him. Despite Harvey's declarations of love, Donna continues to emotionally withdraw.
The police plan to arrest Donna on a no-bail warrant, though Anita Gibbs covertly warns Harvey beforehand. Harvey and Rachel go see Jonathan, trying to understand his military discharge. Donna is already there, having come to warn Jonathan about Harvey's deal with Duke-Sanger.
Donna and Harvey argue about his deal and their relationship. Donna says she wants it all to be over, even if it means prison. But Harvey convinces her to keep fighting.
Legal Plot:
Donna is being investigated for potential crimes related to her past links with Duke-Sanger and her ex-husband Jonathan Martell. While Anita Gibbs is prosecutor, the crimes are said to be aiding and abetting, coercion, conspiracy and fraud, but the indictment has since been dismissed for Federal question, pulling jurisdiction from the state of NY and Gibbs. A new indictment is rumored to be in the making with more severe charges.
It's revealed Donna helped rig the Russo case 13 years ago before she worked at the DA's office, in order to help advance Harvey's career.
Donna plans to confess to her crimes, but Harvey wants to make a deal with the CEO of Duke-Sanger to turn on Jonathan instead. This causes tension between Donna and Harvey.
There are hints that Jonathan may have taken some kind of plea deal years ago to protect Donna in some way, but it may have cost him his military career. The details are still unclear.
Anita Gibbs secretly warns Harvey that the police plan to arrest Donna on a no-bail warrant once the indictment is released, suggesting Gibbs may not fully support Donna's prosecution.
Flashbacks:
Jonathan is in the hospital and learns Alice's cancer has returned. Alice begs to leave so she can play in her championship game that night, which Harvey promised to attend. At home, Alice schemes to plan a romantic dinner for her mother and Harvey.
I
Inside the penthouse it is too quiet, almost defiantly so, as if the silence is there to directly contrast the disarray of thoughts swirling around inside Rachel's head. Harvey has disappeared, taking Donna with him up to the second floor to find something dry for her to change into. It has become Rachel's job, then, to probe and push Jonathan for answers, but she finds herself hesitating before his icy gaze. She can't get a read on him — the contrast between his bluntness and apparent reasonableness makes her unsure of how to approach a conversation.
"Wine?" Jonathan offers, already pouring.
The sudden break in the silence startles Rachel; as if a glass has shattered between them, she takes a quick step backward. "No, I — No. Thank you, but I should probably keep my wits about me."
She wants to slap herself. With Harvey at her back she was calm and assertive. Now she's stammering like a law student at her first mock deposition, groping for confidence.
Jonathan shrugs, indifferent, and takes a long pull of his own drink. Jimmy Bean. She finds it odd that in his expensive well-tailored suit, in this multi-million dollar house, he's drinking a poor man's whiskey. "Good for you," he murmurs. "I never had much wit to keep."
Rachel tries not to look surprised by his subtle disclosure. "I find that unlikely," she says, each word coming out at a careful, deliberate pace. "Don't you need wits to get into MIT?"
"I wouldn't know, would I?"
"Is that an admission?"
"About as much of one as you're going to get out of me." He leans lazily against the counter behind him, his eyes glinting like topaz in the shadows.
Rachel understands. Nothing he tells her is privileged. This is war after all, and they aren't exactly on the same side. "So you lied on your resume," she concludes. "How come you've never been called out on it? Wouldn't your job as an actuary require a certain level of skill set?"
"One would think."
"That's not an answer." She clenches her fists at her sides, frowning up at him. "You know that, I know that. So why don't you just…" She pauses, seeing out of the corner of her eye a child's drawing hanging from the refrigerator, and the words die in her throat. Her hostility suddenly feels unwarranted. She doesn't even know this man. "What do I have to do to get you to trust me?" she asks instead. "I'm only here to protect Donna. If hurting you hurts her, I might as well be your attorney too."
Those vacant, gray depths fill with something. A softness, she thinks. A softness he doesn't seem quite sure what to do with. He recovers himself quickly, however, and slides the glass of wine toward her with a fingertip.
"I'm prepared to tell you everything, Miss Zane, but this really isn't a story you're going to want to be sober for."
II
Harvey finds a bathroom somewhere on the second floor of Jonathan's townhouse. It's an odd yet breathtaking design, with slate walls and dark wood floors trailing out to a sweeping floor-to-ceiling view of Lower Manhattan. Flush with the window is a bathtub the size of a small pond and along the East wall is a floating vanity; the rest of the room is bare, as if whoever designed it wanted nothing to distract from the view.
Kneeling down, Harvey twists the tub faucets on, testing the temperature until it's to his satisfaction. When he turns to Donna, she's exactly as he left her — shivering, hands limp at her sides, her stare fixed on the floor.
"I'll see if I can find you something to change into," he says, keeping his voice light despite the worry gnawing at him. He's terrified of what it might mean for her to be in this house again. What memories it's triggering. From the haunted expression she now wears he can't imagine it's anything good. "Just relax, Donna. I'll be right outside."
She nods, barely, still looking down. He wonders if she even heard him.
Then, "Harvey."
He stops at the door and turns to her. Hopeless, bleak eyes meet his and she says, so quietly he can hardly hear her, "Don't go."
The pride it must cost her, asking for him to stay, leaves Harvey feeling like the ground is falling away beneath his feet.
He closes the door behind him, clicks the lock, and approaches her. She meets him halfway, the ache in his chest sharpening at the way she folds into him, as if those few steps were a massive effort. He holds her close and presses his lips to the crown of her head. "I know it hurts," he murmurs into her hair. "I'm so sorry, Donna. I wish..." I wish I could be what you need, but he can't say that. He has to be what she needs. He has to be enough to pull her out of it.
Her body goes rigid at his unfinished sentence. "You pity me."
"No." He steps away from her, taking her face into his hands and forcing her to look at him. "I love you."
He surprises her and himself with how easy the words come out. It's so easy, in fact, he wonders what the hell kept him from saying it to her every day from the moment he realized it years ago. He should have told her every day.
"Your pain is mine," he says, brushing a stray tear away with his thumb. She shakes her head and makes to pull away, but he grips her a little firmer, keeping her eyes on him. "Everything you carry, I carry it too. That's how it works." More tears fall and Harvey bends to brush his lips against her cheek, dragging across her skin in barely-there kisses, soft and slow so that she knows he isn't trying to be seductive or disingenuous. "Let me take care of you, Donna."
She exhales, slowly, and he gears up for her to pull away again, but to his surprise she relaxes. Something shifts in her gaze. Some wall falls. She shuts her eyes and lets her head rest heavily in his hands. He's not sure how to feel, watching her hand over her resolve. A few days ago she would have clung to her self-control and now she is content to let him gently pry it from her grasp. He wonders if she really wants this—him, or if the fight has truly gone out of her.
"Let's get you in the bath," he says, moving behind her. He tugs gently at the zip of her dress, revealing the smooth, freckled skin at her shoulder blades down to the delicate curve of her spine. Carefully he peels the wet clothing from her body, leaving it to pool at her ankles before taking her by the elbow and helping her step out of her heels and away from the wet heap at her feet.
She follows his lead silently, her eyes downcast, her focus turned inward again.
Once she's fully bare, Harvey takes her by the hand and guides her over the edge of the tub and into the water. She sinks down, her red hair spilling around her pale body like a splash of blood. She shuts her eyes and Harvey watches her lips part with a small sigh of contentment. A wave of feeling courses through him— desire and something sharp and painful, something that jerks at his chest, like being so near a dream you can almost touch it. Worse than that, he thought he had touched it, briefly, last night, but after reading her letter that is now tucked into the pocket of his trousers, he realizes, with regret so complete it leaves him breathless, that he had no idea of the enormity of his misconceptions.
But for now, he sets all of that aside. Their relationship is the last thing that needs addressing.
Searching the vanity for soap, Harvey finds only lavender crystalline salts and various bath oils, all seeming to be put there for exhibit rather than actual use. He discovers the mirror is a medicine cabinet and pops it open with a click. A bottle of 2-in-1 christened Oceanic Breeze stares out at him and he inwardly shudders. There is nothing more illicit than combining shampoo and body wash, but he grabs it out anyway, thinking he'll have the attorney general add it to Jonathan's indictment.
When he turns back to Donna, she is sitting up in the tub with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around herself. Her gaze is fixed on him, dark and heavy. She's silent and serious, but at least she's looking at him.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, after a moment. "For what I said earlier. I know you're only trying to do what's best for me."
Harvey shakes his head, finding it unbearable to hear her apologize to him when he's the one that keeps failing her. "Donna—"
"I knew exactly how you'd react once you found out about Russo," she continues over him, her voice strained and a little hoarse. "I knew and I still had sex with you and I still allowed you to believe that we could make it work." She pauses, her stare shifting to the tops of her knees. "Your anger was a relief, in a small way. I had been waiting for some sort of punishment for my arrogance, for thinking we could maintain what we had after everything I've done."
"We still can," he says, and when she doesn't respond, "Maybe we can't go back to what we were, but we'll figure it out."
"Should we, though?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
She looks back up at him, a sudden, deep sadness in her eyes. "Look at yourself, Harvey — when was the last time you ate? Slept? Shaved? This is too much for you. I'm too much for you."
"So now you're the expert in my capacity to handle things?"
"You started having panic attacks when I left your desk for Louis. I really don't think it takes being an expert to tell you our relationship isn't healthy."
He opens his mouth to demand how she knows about the panic attacks, but it seems useless — her knowledge of anything to do with him is inevitable — so he shuts it, and the two of them stare at each other in silence.
At last, she says, "You know what I'm saying makes sense."
"I'm not having this conversation with you right now." He feels his anger starting to flare inside him like the revving of an engine, and he knows he has to control it. He can feel it, waiting to burst from his mouth in a swarm of stinging provocations. "I can't, Donna. And you can't, either."
"What I can't have is you telling me you love me when it suits you and then taking it back when it doesn't."
"You think this fucking suits me?" He hears his voice straining and feels that anger build into something hopeless and unfair, like in baseball when you're two outs into the bottom of the 9th of a tied game and the muscles in your shoulder are burning from throwing pitch after pitch only for the batter to hit a triple. "You think I want to fall to pieces when you aren't around? I never had a choice in any of this. You just showed up in my life and — god, I wish it wasn't you, Donna, but it is. It's always been you."
The words hang between them, the silence stretching until it is aching and awkward. He stands there, feeling pathetic and humiliated, watching the steady rise and fall of her bare chest that has come away from her knees enough that he can make out the full slope of her breasts before they touch water. She won't look at him.
"Say something," he begs, heart thumping hard and fast against his ribcage. "At least look at me, goddammit."
Silence. Her face in profile is stoic and unmoving as if carved out of stone. He wants to shake her, scream at her, and he moves quickly across the wood floor to maybe do just that, but then her eyes lift to his.
"It all seems so unreal," she says, implacably calm and emptied, and so at odds with the turmoil Harvey feels inside. "Being here. In Tribeca, with you. Harvey." His name comes out almost reverently, her lips curling around it in a sad sort of smile as if there is a secret in it only she knows. "It's even stranger to think the last time I was in this house I tried to end my life."
Harvey swallows hard, struck by her sudden frank honesty and by the sheer enormity of what she's confessing. He knew, of course, her letter told him as much, but god, to hear her admit it out loud. It scares him, but it also relieves him in a way —they have finally reached a point where she feels she can be vulnerable.
"I'm not even sure how I got there," she says after a long silence. "I didn't want to die, but it got to the point where I had this quiet, frequent yearning to just…not exist, and over time it got a little louder and a little louder until it was all I could hear. I could barely breathe beyond it."
She falls quiet again. In her eyes Harvey sees a great loneliness. A thousand dark nights spent weighted by grief and remorse. He inches closer, helplessly drawn in.
"I was right at the edge," she continues, her voice dropping to a breathy whisper. "I wasn't even afraid, but then I remembered Alice's goals list and how she wanted me to meet you and suddenly I had this trivial task to perform, some small purpose. That's it." She shakes her head, her eyebrows lifting in faint astonishment at the revelation. "That's all I had. That's what living and dying boiled down to. You. And once I had you, I couldn't let you go, because it felt like you were all that was keeping me going. You, and then being your secretary, and then the firm and everyone in it. I dug myself out of a pit of despair, but I had to lie and manipulate everyone to do it. It was completely selfish —"
"Donna." Harvey sinks to his knees, and for the first time in his life he understands, viscerally, what it means when people say their heart is breaking, except it's not just his heart, he feels his whole self shatter at her words.
"I'm sorry, Harvey. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for all of it. I—"
He touches her face, his fingers curling through her damp hair and bends across the tub to brush his mouth over hers, desperate to stop her, to stop the self-loathing and the memories and the tears.
Donna lets out a small sound, like a faint, fluttering sob, and Harvey feels desire burst through him, from his brain to his abdomen to his cock to his mouth to the tips of his fingers and he groans softly and kisses her again, harder, desperate to maintain the closeness.
When they pull apart, just an inch, Donna lets out a shaky breath and whispers, "I didn't have a choice with you either." Then her hands are snaking into his hair and she's rising to her knees to meet him halfway.
III
Rachel hangs her raincoat over a chair to dry and follows Jonathan out of the kitchen, her glass of wine clutched in her hand, already mostly emptied.
He guides her past the staircase and into a living room, and while tastefully decorated, there is something cold and absent about the space, as if it hasn't been lived in for a while. As she glances around, her gaze is drawn to a large portrait hanging resolutely above an antique sideboard. It is of Donna and Jonathan, standing outside what looks like a courthouse, him in his Marine Corps dress blues, her in a simple white gown, an unmistakable swell to her belly.
"She was pregnant," Rachel utters audibly, the involuntary sound of relief permeating her words.
"Does that come as a surprise?"
"No," she says, and then realizes how this must come off and backtracks. "I mean — You're just, well…" Intimidating. Sullen. So not Donna's type — although the last relationship Rachel recalls Donna being in was with Stephen Huntley. A murdering psychopath.
Maybe she should be surprised.
Maybe she doesn't know Donna at all.
"You were young to be married, is all," she finishes.
Jonathan just stares at her from across the room, long enough for it to feel uncomfortable. She breaks away from his gaze, and goes back to surveying the photographs adoring the walls . Her eyes lock on who she knows must be Alice, slumped in an armchair wearing an oversized sports jersey and ripped jeans. She is the spitting image of Donna, only with untamed, slightly lighter hair and blue eyes. The familial connection to Jonathan is obvious in the eyes. They have that same intensity, that same faintly patronizing gaze that seems to know too much about the world to not hold a bit of disdain. She finds it strange, seeing such an aged look on a small child.
"What was she like?" She asks. "Alice? Donna doesn't talk about her and…" she trails off, suddenly aware that she is wading into a place she has no right to pry.
But Jonathan shrugs and says, "I'm not the best person to ask. We weren't very close."
"Because you were deployed for most of her life?"
"That's part of it, I suppose. Mostly I was just a shitty father."
His words carry such stark honesty. Yet Rachel thinks she's beginning to like this about him. He doesn't embellish or soften anything for her. "I'm surprised Donna put up with you."
He laughs at this, an oddly soft chuckle. It seems such a rare phenomenon it leans a charge through the air and has Rachel offering him a tight lipped smile despite herself.
He motions to a plush armchair and she sits down, depositing her glass of wine on the end table beside her. She folds her hands in her lap and waits. For what exactly, she's not sure.
Jonathan takes the seat across from her. "So," he says. "Rachel. Where would you like me to begin?"
"The court house you were married in. Onslow county. Where is that?"
"That far back, huh?"
"I want the whole story." She shrugs. "That seems like a safe place to start."
She watches him fearlessly now, the wine having restored some of her confidence. There is a tension in him, as languidly as he sits in the armchair before her, she is still able to catch the slight twitch in his jaw. Up close, his pale eyes, which Rachel initially found unsettling, are strangely alluring, like a snowy, desolate landscape. Lovely and terrifying all at once.
"North Carolina," he says. "I was based out of Camp Lejeune, so we lived in a place called Jacksonville for a while."
"Did Donna live on base with you?"
He offers a nod. "It helped to have the other military wives around when I was away and Alice was small. She was there for a couple of years and then moved to Durham to be near the children's hospital."
A military wife. Rachel tries to picture it — Donna enduring the long periods of separation from her spouse, managing household responsibilities, raising Alice, and maintaining a sense of stability as a single parent for a year or years at a time — and weirdly, the image fits. The capability is there, as is the strength and dedication. "So you moved to Durham. Then what?"
"She moved to Durham. I was on deployment."
Rachel blinks in surprise. "You were deployed while Alice was sick?"
"I didn't have a choice. Apparently war doesn't stop because your daughter has cancer."
"Surely they would have given you leave?"
"They gave me seven days. Told me to take five and save a couple for the funeral." His tone is mild, his posture unruffled, yet there is that twitch in his jaw again. "Uncle Sam doesn't have a lot of sympathy."
"God, that's…" Unfair seems woefully inadequate. She leaves the statement, moving toward the point, "Is that why you were discharged? You abandoned your post to be with them?"
Jonathan lips hitch up at the corner, his smile sardonic. "That sounds like something a good father would've done. But as I've said, that's not me. I put my duty to my country above my family. I thought what I was doing in Afghanistan was worth all the sacrifice."
Rachel stares at him for a long moment, trying and failing to find an emotion somewhere within his impenetrable calm. "And what was it you were doing in Afghanistan?" she asks carefully.
"Counterterrorism mostly."
"That's kind of a blanket term, isn't it?"
He sits up in his chair a little. His stare shifts in a subtle way — or maybe Rachel's just reading him better. Suddenly he looks faintly hostile. "I doubt you can stomach the specifics."
"I can if they're important to this case."
"They're not."
She gives him a moment to let the hostility pass, sipping what's left of her wine. When he appears to relax, she says softly, like Donna would, "Then tell me what is important. You said your time in the military was significant. How?"
He averts his gaze, staring at the whiskey tumbler he holds balanced atop his knee. His thumb taps idly at the rim.
"Jonathan?" His patience is being tried but Rachel figures she might as well keep pushing, she won't learn anything playing the silent game.
"Donna said your father is an attorney." He glances back up at her. "Is that why you became one?"
"I'm sorry?"
"It's a simple question."
"Yes, but what does it matter?"
"Call me old fashioned, but I like to get to know someone before I breach an NDA with the Department of Defense."
A nondisclosure with the DoD. Rachel takes the bait, intrigued enough to answer, however senseless it seems. "Sure. I mean, I guess." She bites her lip, considering the question further, wondering how much she should tell him. She wants him to trust her, perhaps opening up about herself will get her there faster. "I think at first it was just a way to bond with him. We didn't have much in common — he probably would've rather had a son — but telling him I wanted to be like him kind of…I don't know, gave us something? I mean, it wasn't football, but it was something."
"Yet you work for his competitor. Why?"
She hesitates, and considers lying for a moment. She thinks about telling him she doesn't want to live under her father's shadow, or about all the conflicts of interest working for his firm might cause, perhaps throwing in that people would think she was riding his coattails, but none of this is wholly true and she doesn't think Jonathan Martell is the sort of person you lie to. Like Donna, he seems omniscient, as if he already knows all the answers and is just testing her. So she speaks the truth.
"My father was never very encouraging. Maybe he thought I wasn't smart enough or that I lacked the fortitude, but he'd say things like 'why not be a ballerina, it's less stressful' and god that would piss me off. I felt like I had to prove him wrong every step of the way."
A stagnating silence falls. After a few moments, firmly, Jonathan says, "And?"
"And..." She shakes her head. Then makes herself answer, because she's already admitted this much and some part of her wants to continue, as if this stoic, unmoving man is meant to be the recipient of her secrets. "And it hurt, knowing he didn't support me. I guess taking the job with Pearson Specter Litt was my way of hurting him."
Jonathan nods, as if to himself. And she resents his casual assumption of her, petty and childish, like she's only here because her father wanted a son. Even though he's probably right.
"All right." All at once Jonathan rises, and although he keeps the movement smooth and unthreatening, Rachel flinches back as if he's about to come at her. But he simply reaches for her empty glass and takes it to the kitchen for a refill, giving her the space to compose herself. Handing it back, he says, "Afghanistan, then," and sighs as he sits back down.
He looks at her for a long, hard moment, and there is a cold consideration to this look that warns her that whatever he's about to admit might be too much for Rachel to swallow. "I can handle it," she blurts, before he gets any ideas to further delay.
He nods, mollified, and lets out a deep breath. "My last tour was in the Korengal Valley. Have you heard of it?"
She shakes her head, a little embarrassed by the fact.
"It's in the Kunar province, near the border of Pakistan. The Afghans that live there practice Wahhabism, a more rigid form of Islam. The fighters are fierce and fanatical and know the terrain well enough to brave raiding the US bases. We called it the Valley of Death."
He pauses to sip his drink, hand rubbing methodically at the flesh above his left knee as if to soothe an old wound. "Shortly after my placement there our company chief, Eric Harrison, was killed by an IED while trying to disrupt insurgent movements. They asked me to step in for Harrison and lead the company. About two months into my leadership we received intel that there were dushka — a russian-made antiaircraft gun — smuggled in from Pakistan in a small village near the eastern border. The location was deep in the valley. Deeper than we ever pushed. The village was… well, if you look at it on a map, you'd see it nestled into the hills of the Abas Ghar mountain. The perfect setup for an ambush. They called it Operation Icarus' Ascent."
Rachel frowns immediately. "Didn't Icarus fall from the sky and drown?"
"Right," he mutters. The muscle in his jaw jumps as if he's grinding his teeth. "But us grunts were too dumb to heed the warning. So up that valley we went, straight into an ambush. It took four hours for the birds to get to us. By then…"
He has to stop. His expression is…guilty? Regretful. Sad. He breathes out slowly, looking away. After he swallows, he resumes.
"I'll spare you the ugly details. None of that matters, anyway. It's just preliminary. What matters is I woke up in Kabul in a hospital bed with a suit from the Defense Department sitting next to me." He looks up at her, and she tries not to flinch at the hate on his face. "He was there to formally prefer charges against me."
"Charges?" Rachel is confused. Did she miss the part where he did something illegal? "For what?"
"Turns out the mission never actually had congressional approval."
Jonathan finishes his whiskey, giving Rachel a moment to let this information sink in. "What does that mean?" she asks.
"It means they sent men into a slaughter without doing their due diligence and now they had seven dead Marines. That's bad PR for a war losing America's favor. Seeing as I was the lowest man on the totem pole and to save all of their own asses, the official story became that I went rogue and led my men into ambush based on bad intel."
"What?" She's no longer confused. She understands, but she doesn't want to, so she decides she must still be confused.
"The suit explained that I had two options. I could be referred to a court martial trial of the highest severity, inevitably found guilty, and spend upwards to thirty years in confinement. Or I could simply sign a plea deal. He had all the paperwork and had already spoken to Donna to arrange the terms. They'd set me up with a job, pay off our debts, and get Alice into the best clinical trials for her cancer. The only caveat would be that I'd have to be dishonorably discharged and stripped of my ranking and metals. 'A sacrifice for this nation and the war which stole the lives of your fellow Marines,' he told me. Smug fuck."
Rachel's eyes widen, her lips parting in dismay. "So what did you do?"
"I told him to go to hell, of course." A rueful smile touches his lips, there and then gone. "My principles outweighed my pragmatism in those days."
He stands abruptly, glass in hand, and crosses to the window. "The man left me to 'think it over,' but I had already made my decision. I was going to face the trial. Not for my honor, but for my team. I wasn't going to let their deaths be covered up because some asshole in DC forgot to file the paperwork."
He withdraws a cigarette from his breast pocket, rolling it idly between his fingers. Rachel studies his refined features — the high cheekbones and sculpted jawline — trying to reconcile the shrewd, commanding businessman she knows him to be with the aggrieved soldier in his story.
"Then Donna called," he continues, his voice low and steady. "Begged me to accept the deal, for Alice's sake." He turns from the window, those hollowed, wintry eyes seeking Rachel's. "And I couldn't…" He sighs and runs a hand through his dark hair, his face clouding with an inward look of regret. "I couldn't say no. Not to her. So I plead guilty and allowed them to strip me of everything I was."
Rachel swallows back a lump in her throat. "I'm sorry," she says, the inadequacy of the sentence palpable in the ensuing silence.
Jonathan's shoulders slump ever so slightly, as if her sympathy only compounds the weight on them.
"Don't be," he tells her. "I made my choices."
IV
Donna sits curled around herself in the bathtub with an ache between her legs that nearly equal the one in her chest as she watches Harvey undress himself.
She should stop him.
She should beg him to let her go, tell him to hate her.
But she is helpless in the grip of her own selfishness. Helpless and tired and overwhelmed, and Harvey is brave and relentless — shouldering the weight of so many things with unwavering will. His very presence steadies her, seems to weigh her down to the present like an anchor. With him she feels safe and stable, which is crazy because they are both so terrifyingly unstable, arguing and then kissing and now this – the muscles in his stomach flexing as he lifts his shirt up and over his head, his gaze – his brown and lovely gaze, so gently and warm and kind – fixed on her like there is nothing else in the world he wants. It makes her want to cry; she shifts her eyes away from him instead.
Peering out the picture window beside her, she stares at her own reflection rather than the city beyond. She looks exhausted, she thinks, not just physically, but like her soul is tired. And god, it is. Her confession to Harvey felt like the final wisp of it gone out of her. She thinks of those canisters in her kitchen, but emptier. Depthless. And then she's thinking about Jonathan, cold and patronizing, but he doesn't expect her to be the infallible woman she has built herself into. He doesn't expect her to be perfect. She doesn't have to worry about ruining her image or their relationship. It's already ruined. And there is a certain peace in that, in being your broken, ugly, vulnerable self and having someone accept you unflinchingly.
Her mind pivots, and it is Alice. Here, in this very bathroom, sticking soapy foam letters to the window, giggling because she spelt out P-O-O-P-Y-B-U-T in an arc over Manhattan. Donna is pretending to be mortified, telling her how very unladylike and butt has two T's. The memory is so sharp and unexpected it takes her breath away. They are ghosts, the two of them, laughing and splashing. So unabashed in their happiness. It is hard for her to remember that feeling — happiness without shame.
The regrets follow, as they always do, when Donna thinks of Alice. She should have let her pass away here, at home, on hospice, with Molly curled up beside her surrounded by everything she cared about and loved rather than at the hospital, tormented by every test and failed treatment. She shouldn't have prioritized work so much in those last few years. All those nights when she came home and Alice was already in bed, she'll never get those back. She should have let her go barefoot more, told her to be careful less, had more patience, let her sleep in the bed with her anytime she wanted, ignoring Jonathan protests. She should have done so many things differently. So many things, and they go round and round in her head. She's like a dog chasing its tail, and nothing ever changes. The past can't be touched.
In her ear, Harvey murmurs, "You're drifting again."
He has slipped into the bathtub behind her without her even noticing, his body curling up around her protectively so that her back is pressed tightly to his chest, one of his knees raised on either side of her.
All the thoughts spinning around in her head abruptly stop and it is only him, the feel of him against her, his smell, no longer that rich aftershave he wears, but something earthy and human. Something Boston rather than New York.
"Stay with me," he says. His voice is soft, his breath hot against her skin.
Donna stares at her knees, her heart thudding heavily in her chest, and she wants to give in. She wants to say that staying here, staying with Harvey, is the only thing that feels good. She wants to let go of every ounce of strength in her body, every inch of resistance, and just collapse backward into his arms. But instead, she swallows against the burning in her throat and tentatively asks, "Can we talk?"
She feels his hands, soap-slicked, slide down her spine. "About what?"
"Everything."
He hesitates. Without looking, she can see, in the hesitation, his brows come together and his eyes narrow in that way that he has when he tries not to panic. She knows him so well. She knows him so well that making conversation with him is like having a struggle with herself. "You don't have to. Not now, at least. I —"
"Harvey." She hugs her knees, pulling away from him slightly. "We have to."
He sighs, but his voice is steady when he whispers, "I know."
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, trying to summon the strength to begin a conversation she knows is long overdue.
V
In the fluorescent-lit kitchen, beneath a vast glass canopy, Jonathan stands watching his daughter wrestle around in the freezer, her little body half-hanging out of the open drawer. He lets her struggle, silent and impassive, admiring the way she carries on seamlessly despite the recent news of her cancer's return. He can't help but think that even the most hardened marines could benefit from her grit.
She finally surfaces, a tangle of frost clinging to her copper hair. "Got it!" she says, her voice a vibrant note in the otherwise quiet room.
Jonathan nods at her in silent acknowledgement. He doesn't smile. The weight of what's coming sits heavily on his shoulders, preventing him from fully embracing the present moment— a moment that already feels like a distant memory from another lifetime. But perhaps it's always been this way. This nagging sense of being a stranger in his own life, as though he's an imposter in the role of a father and a husband.
Alice sets the frozen slab of elk meat on the counter, her eyes lifting to meet his. "When should we tell Mom?"
He knows what she's asking, yet evades her anyway. "About Harvey coming to dinner?"
Her gaze is unyielding, a blue so deep he fears he might drown in it. "About me dying."
A chill races down Jonathan's spine at her directness, unnerved by how easily she speaks the words he can't yet bring himself to say. How does he break the news to Donna? How does he look his wife in the eyes and confess that the war they've fought for so long, one that's become a twisted sense of normalcy, may be unwinnable? Hell, he can't.
"What if we just…don't?" he suggests in a low, conspiratorial murmur. "We'll go to the game, have dinner with Harvey, and then maybe, after getting ice cream, I'll lose control on the highway and drive us into the Hudson. Take that fucking cancer down with us."
Alice grins at his profanity. Too crude for a second grader. Too much like him. They are both soldiers in their own way; only she never chose to be one. "That'd be pretty cool," she says. "But I doubt Harvey signed up for all that drama."
Jonathan exhales a bitter laugh. "No, I guess not. And it wouldn't be much fun without Harvey, would it?"
She squirms, a blush tingeing her freckled cheeks. Her infatuation with the attorney is not as subtle as she had hoped. "It's not… He's just…"
"I know." And he does understand, more than she realizes. Harvey represents everything Jonathan can never be for her — lightness, fun, a place of refuge away from the dark reality of her illness.
His thoughts drift to his own father — his drunken rages and violent hands. He vowed to never become him, yet knows his absence, the scars of Afghanistan, the PTSD that claws at him when the night is still, have shaped him into something equally destructive—a distant, unfeeling stranger. He can't blame Alice for wishing for a different sort of father in her life.
As if sensing his regret, Alice breaks the heavy silence between them. "I know it's not easy for you…to hang out with me. Harvey… he's just kinda goofy. It makes me feel like I can be goofy too without disappointing him, you know?"
Disappointment. Is that what he radiates? Jonathan kneels down to her level so they are eye to eye, his gaze for once completely open and unguarded. "My shortcomings as a father have nothing to do with you," he says. "Do you understand?"
She hesitates, searching his eyes, then nods slowly.
"You deserved far better from me, Alice," he whispers, the admission paining him.
So much like Donna in her quiet, contemplative expression. Yet there is a sharpness in her eyes, little mirrors of his own, that tells him although she understands, she can't easily forgive his weaknesses.
She doesn't say anything — what is there to say, really? — instead, she steps forward, skittish as a fawn, and wraps her small arms around his neck. The unexpected contact makes his body stiffen reflexively before he melts into her embrace. Holding her slight frame against his own, Jonathan feels as though he's stumbled out of a blizzard and into a fire-lit room.
He clasps her tightly, wishing he could voice the sea of unspoken regrets and apologies churning inside him, but it's too late for all that now. Their relationship is what it is.
Just as they start to pull apart, Donna enters the kitchen. She takes in the scene—the elk on the counter, him and Alice in a heartfelt embrace. Confusion furrows her brow, her voice a mix of amusement and disbelief. "What's all this about?"
"Nothing," Alice says casually, glancing at Jonathan with a sly smile. "Just a lecture on bow hunting that got a little passionate. Thought a hug might reset him."
Donna raises an eyebrow, her gaze shifting from Alice to Jonathan and back. "God, you poor thing. Did he give you the traditional versus modern spiel? The artistry of a genuine wood bow?"
"No pulleys, no cams," Alice confirms, tonelessly, with a little roll of her eyes.
In a voice Jonathan thinks is meant to mock him, Donna drawls, "It's like a dance with the arrow."
"Alright," he says, a smirk touching his lips despite his unease. "I get it."
Donna and Alice exchange a mischievous grin at his expense. Jonathan takes in the sight of them, vibrant not just in the redness of their hair, but in their whole person. He can't help but wonder what his life would be like without their liveliness and energy. Then the cold reality hits him — a not so distant future where he'll likely find out.
The thought draws him inward, and he turns his back to the moment, busying himself with unwrapping the package of meat.
Alice bounds out of the kitchen, chattering about getting ready for the game. The space falls quiet in her absence.
Jonathan glances over to find Donna leaning pensively against the counter, her focus turned outward to the jagged New York skyline. Feeling his eyes on her, she asks lightly, "What do you think she's more excited about — the championship or Harvey?" Her tone is playful, but he senses her probing, groping for a deeper question just beyond her grasp.
He shrugs, taking the frozen slab and tossing it into a stainless steel bowl to thaw. Her unasked question bores underneath his skin; he wishes she'd just get to the point.
"And I take it you're okay with it?" She looks over at him, watching him carefully as he washes his hands at the sink. "Having Harvey here?"
"Why wouldn't I be?"
Hands dripping water, he rifles through drawers, slamming them harder than necessary. There are so many drawers, dozens upon dozens, a multitude of useless spaces. Why must even simple tasks be needlessly complicated? It shouldn't take ten minutes for him to find a goddamn hand towel. He sighs. "Donna."
"There, darling. To the right. They haven't moved." Her voice strains for patience.
"This is absurd," he mutters. "And why are there so many — are we a fucking towel store?" He yanks a stack of monogrammed linens out and throws them on the granite countertop. "Give those to the maid next time she's in."
Donna looks away, swallowing back whatever emotions lie pent-up inside of her.
"What? he insists. "Say it."
She looks over with a glare. "I just hate it. I hate that Alice has to go looking for what she should already have. I mean, you're here for Christ sake, Johnny. You're not in Afghanistan anymore. Why can't you just be…" she trails off mid-sentence, the words abandoned as if she's afraid to give them shape.
"Be what?" He demands. "Be Harvey?"
She doesn't respond, just stares down at the granite countertop, following the veins of black and gray with her eyes as if mapping out escape routes.
Her silence feels far worse than any shouting would. At least a raised voice carries a heat, a volatility that suggests passion still smolders somewhere deep below the ashes. But this measured avoidance, walking on eggshells around subjects too painful to touch, whispers of a relationship grown cold and brittle.
"Look, if the guy is taking the time out of his day to show up to her peewee hockey game, the least we can do is feed him. Alright?"
"Alright," Donna parrots softly.
He moves first, turning away under the pretense of tidying up. He begins scrubbing at imagined spots on the already gleaming counters.
Donna watches him for a long moment before crossing over to where he stands. She places a tentative hand on his arm. "Jonathan..." she starts, then falters.
He stills beneath her touch, every muscle taunt.
"I'm sorry. I know you're trying."
Her words land like a blow. Is this what she sees? A half-hearted attempt when he has sacrificed everything — honor, brotherhood, identity — for the blood money that bought them this life? He plead away principles, shed his combat uniform for a costume. Gave up one prison for another. And still she looks at him with accusation in her eyes, as if he is the one who failed them.
Hell, maybe he has.
Before he can respond, her phone rings on the countertop, shattering the silence. The caller ID flashes "Dr. Rabb."
Jonathan grabs Donna's wrist, stopping her from answering.
He feels that ringing phone with all the threat of a bomb going off. His hand tightens around her slim wrist, and in his silent panic he almost does it. Wraps his hands around the elegant column of her throat and squeezes. Chokes the life out of her. It would be a mercy compared to the agonizing fate that awaits. Just a few moments of pressure into his fingertips and it would be over. Her suffering would end here.
Donna frowns. "Jonathan?" The question is a whisper, a plea for an explanation.
"Don't," he says, his voice soft despite the command in it.
Donna's eyes widen, fear creeping into the edges as she puts the pieces together. "No," she says, barely audible. "Please."
She is begging him as though he wields some power here. But he is utterly impotent. It is true — he has failed them — as a father and husband, as a man. With anguish twisting his features, he shakes his head. "It's over, Donna," he rasps, a condemned man. He cannot save them from what comes.
VI
Donna starts where it inevitably all starts — with her parents.
Her mother is fiery and stubborn, sheltered and spoiled, one of those stereotypical Texas debutantes whose idea of rebellion is to vote democrat and date outside of her social class. That's where her father comes in, the son of an accountant and a school teacher, painfully middle-class, but lucky enough with the stock market to do business at the Dallas country clubs.
Donna's grandfather, an oilman, both old-fashioned and prejudiced, would term Jim Paulsen 'new money.' The sort that would lose it as quickly as he got it. When things get serious he offers his daughter a house in Monaco to leave the Stock Trader. Sandra marries Jim instead, whether it is for love or just to spite her father, no one really knows. She probably doesn't know herself.
They move to New York, upstate, the suburbs, and a year later Donna is born because she has to be. It fits an image — the picturesque family. Sandra tries at being a mother for a few weeks, but decides she hates everything about it — the crying, the soiled diapers, her chafed and leaking nipples. She hires a nanny and takes a trip to Spain. She never really comes back.
When Donna is five years old, her latest nanny — a fresh face in a revolving door of caretakers— teaches her how to play 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' on the piano. The smooth keys under her small fingers makes her feel powerful, like she can control something in a life filled with uncertainty; she conjures melodies, sculpts moods, spins tales in notes and rests and tempos. Music becomes asylum.
As the years pass, she transitions from nursery rhymes to more complex compositions. She holds a makeshift recital for her parents on one of the rare occasions they're both home. Her mother's honeyed drawl spews platitudes, but they fall flat in the light of the detachment in her eyes. Her father, beaming, dubs her a tiny Mozart. The very next day she starts lessons with a musician from Julliard, who, in his heavy German accent, declares her a disaster. She is clumsy and unpolished. She is only eight years old and feels his criticisms etch themselves across her skin, because what is music if not the mirror to one's soul?
In junior high she graduates at the top of her class, only she's not as smart as Laura Clemmings and loses valedictorian. Her mother is indifferent, but her father's disappointment is palpable, as if he was counting on the talking point at his next round of golf.
High school. The fighting begins. The eventual divorce. It is almost a relief when it happens. What shocks Donna most is that her mother asks for custody. It only starts to make sense when the delinquent bills arrive in the mail, and her mother, jobless, is drinking Chianti Classico like it's someone else's problem.
Donna is left to shoulder the burden. She takes up waitressing before and after school. It is during this time that one of her coworkers mentions a young man at the church that gives piano lessons on weekends. He's a marine recruit from Georgia — her father doesn't like that he's military, her mother doesn't like that he's southern, but he's cheap and that appeals to both of them.
Jonathan Martell doesn't fit the typical pianist stereotype. He drives a truck, smokes cigarettes, and considers camping a vacation. When he plays the piano it is jarring and entirely unorthodox. Yet his angry, untamed, wrongness plays to Donna's soul. He both terrifies and inspires her, all at the same time. She learns from those calloused hands more than just piano technique; their rhythm both creation and cage.
During her sophomore year, Donna stumbles upon the world of theater. She plays Eliza in Pygmalion and it is so easy for her to slip into the role. Maybe it's because she's always wishing she was someone else, someone significant and captivating. But when the curtain closes on opening night, she feels unseen, until the crowd thins and her marine stands waiting.
He tells her she's incredible, and because she loves him — worships him, really — she believes it. For the first time in her life, she doesn't feel lacking or inadequate.
He gets deployed to Yemen and she stays behind, committed to that precious whole feeling that she is enough for him. There are only a few months left of her senior year and then it's Yale, an economics major with a minor in theater. Jonathan has two years left in the service and then she'll convince him to move with her to New Haven. She has it all planned out and life is seeming less daunting. But then, she misses her period. It's only when the nausea sets in that she finally admits it to herself. She's known for a week before she tells him and by that time she's already made her decision.
Jonathan's voice floats to her on waves of desert heat, steady and pragmatic as ever following her news. Neither shocked nor concerned, merely present. She is grateful for his calm fortitude as he vows to find a way home for the procedure. To lend his strength, he says, although she convinces herself that it's more to ensure she goes through with it.
The clinic is cold and smells antiseptic in a way that is redolent of failure and regret. When the ultrasound image flickers to life, Donna averts her eyes. But Jonathan's face softens at the glimpse of their could-be child. Her resolve falters. She asks the doctor for a moment, and, with Jonathan's hand clasped in hers, steps outside into the sun-soaked parking lot.
Before she can get a word in, Jonathan is down on one knee, pulling out a ring. It is not grand, but seeing it fills her with a fool's hope. Maybe this is the answer. She envisions love and family, the white picket fantasy she never had, and grasps it with both hands. Yet when the ring slides onto her finger, the metal feels like a shackle chaining her to a doomed fate.
Alice comes screaming into the world, all pink skin and flailing limbs. Donna marvels at her impossible perfection, kissing her feathery hair. She breathes her in, lets her consume every dark corner. The life she could have had is forgotten in an instant. This is it, this is everything. Alice becomes her purpose, her life begins and ends in this child.
And it is good for a while, perfect even, but she must skip over these parts because they hurt most.
Alice falls ill. At first, it is a fever that doesn't subside, then an unexplained lump and fatigue. Doctors and insurance companies become a constant in Donna's life. She fights, argues, and pleads, but the diagnosis is inevitable — cancer. The word hangs in the air, a grotesque mockery of the life she had envisioned for her daughter.
Donna holds firm amidst the pain. She insists on aggressive treatment, even when Jonathan hesitates at the bleak prognosis. His hopelessness is transparent, a dark cloud that hangs over them, but Donna refuses to yield. She will not let despair dictate Alice's fate.
The bills pile up, insurmountable. Jonathan's deployment brings more agony. He is injured, his team decimated. He wakes in a foreign land to a stranger bearing an ultimatum. He is the scapegoat, the fall guy — a sacrificial lamb on the altar of bureaucracy.
The plea deal is a cruel choice between two unbearable outcomes. Yet, it offers a glimmer of hope — a job, debt forgiveness, a chance for Alice. It is a Faustian bargain, a deal with the devil that promises salvation, but the cost is everything for Jonathan — his pride, his honor, his freedom.
Donna urges him to accept. She begs and begs, her voice a hollow echo of the vibrant woman she once was. She knows he would never ask her to do the same, trade her integrity for a lifeline. And she hates him for it — the knowledge that he does not hold their daughter in the same priority.
But however reluctant, he accepts. His new role, an actuary at Duke-Sanger, is a far cry from the battlefield, but it's a battlefield nonetheless. A battlefield of corruption and greed, where the casualties are measured in dollars and cents.
When the chairman resigns suddenly, the shareholders waste no time tapping Jonathan as his replacement. From their vantage he was the perfect candidate: obedient, complacent, desperate to keep Alice in her treatments.
So he ascends, the perfect puppet. And at the same time, Alice falls into remission. Death's looming threat retreats, but it leaves in its wake a new threat. The establishment, sensing the waning control over Jonathan should Alice continue to thrive, promotes Donna to COO. Fresh leverage keeping him in check.
Slowly Jonathan and Donna surrender more pieces of themselves, integrity and ideals peel away layer by layer, selling their souls one compromise at a time until the people staring back in the mirrors are strangers to them. Until it becomes so easy, wielding the power, holding that prestige, that it is no longer a concession — they want it.
Then the cancer returns. Swift and merciless. Their beautiful daughter withers before their eyes. Donna spirals at the loss, while Jonathan, with his military bearing, simply hardens further. He marches on, leaving her behind.
Her grief swells, enormous and consuming. When it seems she'll burst from the pain, she finds him. Harvey. Blazing with confidence and purpose. Donna's broken soul reaches for his light, desperate to bask in its warmth.
So she lies, fashions a mask and plays a part. He believes her performance, sees only what she wishes him to see — the collected, capable woman, worthy of his trust. And she clings to him in return, to the warmth and light he radiates so carelessly, her hands stained in grasping. With him she can almost believe she has found purpose again. Can almost forget the false foundation on which they stand. Can almost be happy.
But the curtain always falls.
VII
Harvey holds Donna against his chest, her bare back molded to him as her story spills out in tremors. There are memories that catch in her throat, names that escape only on hitched breaths. Her fractured childhood. The pregnancy. Alice. The desperation behind her choices, the exploitation and degradation, the slow erosion of her integrity, those final months in this house, the temptation of that stone balustrade beneath her bare feet. He listens silently, helpless, each revelation like a knife twisting in his gut.
Now only an echo of her words remains. A weighted silence. When he can bear no more he lets his lips graze her cheek, soft as a breath. "Face me," he whispers.
She obeys, shoulders rotating within the cage of his arms. Her eyes swim with guilt. "If you had any sense, you'd run from this."
He reaches out, brushing a damp lock of hair from her cheek. "I'm not running from anything."
She shakes her head, disapproving. "How can you still want me?"
It's strange, looking at her. She is a different person to him now, hardly Donna at all. He is surprised that Donna is still her name. Yet the two personas that he split her into are coming together in a blurry focus. He is afraid, of course, and angry and hurt. But… "You've made mistakes," tells her. "That doesn't change how I feel." And it doesn't. Is he a fool? Likely.
"Harvey..."
He swallows her protests with a kiss, hungry yet reverent. She stiffens, then relents with a sigh, her naked body pressing against his in the tepid water. He loses himself in sensation, the slick glide of her skin, the way she arches into his touch, nerve endings singing wherever they meet. He tries to pour with his hands, his mouth, all the things he can't articulate — forgiveness, acceptance, devotion. Slowly her hands slide up his back, drawing him closer still.
When they finally break apart, breathless, he searches her face. Eyes dark with want, lips swollen, she is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. "No more secrets," he says. "Promise me."
She nods, and for a moment the haunted tension in her expression softens. "I promise."
Relief swells inside him. He lifts her easily, turning so she sits at the tub's edge, framed by the wide window and the city lights beyond. Rivulets run between her breasts as he claims her mouth again, unable to get enough, one hand tangled in her hair. She responds eagerly, nails raking down his back. But when he slides a hand between her thighs, she goes rigid.
He lifts a brow in question.
"I just — can't." She touches his cheek apologetically. "Not here."
Harvey nods, but he thinks there's more to it than that. "Not here…" he repeats. "Is that it?"
Her fingertips scrape against his beard, her eyes locked on his. "I don't want this to be the answer for when words fail us," she says softly. "Eventually the lust will run out. We have to learn how to navigate this without, you know…" A bittersweet smile. "Fucking each other senseless."
He kisses her upturned palm in concession. "But I like fucking you senseless."
"Harvey," she laughs, though it comes out taut, a string plucked. "There's also the little problem of my ex-husband being downstairs."
Her caution just makes him more vehement. "What's he going to do? Come up here and kill me?"
"No. God, no." Another laugh, this one looser. "I think he's happy I'm someone else's problem." She falls quiet a moment, worrying her lip. "It's just...I don't know. Disrespectful, isn't it?"
He hears the question buried beneath her words. Does she still have feelings for this man, the father of her lost child? It scares him that she can't see the way Jonathan looks at her — not outright pining, but a subtle shift in his bearing when she enters the room. Harvey tastes jealousy, acrid on the back of his tongue.
"Okay," he says, swallowing his need.
He helps her from the bath and finds a t-shirt of Jonathan's for her to wear, so large it gapes immodestly at her throat. He can't help the way his badly wired brain imagines slipping a hand beneath the loose neckline, palming one of her freckled breasts.
He tucks her into one of the guest beds and perches beside her on the edge of the mattress. Her hair is still wet, little damp stands curling around her face. She looks like one of those paintings of sad-eyed Virgin Marys minus the halo.
"We've got to do something about your beard," she murmurs, a small smile on her lips despite the exhaustion in her eyes.
"This?" He strokes his bristled jaw, feigning offense. "I'm keeping it."
"Absolutely not." She shakes her head. "No way."
"You don't like it?"
Her eyes soften at the corners. "I do. But I can't have my attorney showing up to court looking like he belongs in the Sons of Anarchy."
He lifts a brow, hopeful. "So you're hiring me?"
"Depends. What's your fee?"
"Just your undying love and devotion." He means it lightly, but the words sink heavy between them. Uncertainty flickers in her gaze.
Sensing he has overstepped, Harvey redirects. "Just promise me one thing," he says, forcing a smile. When she lifts a questioning brow, he adds, "Never cook for me again. That Bolognese was awful, Donna. One of the worst things I've ever tasted."
The admission startles a laugh from her even as color stains her cheeks.
"I'm glad we fought before dinner," he continues, unable to hide his own widening smile. "I don't think I could've choked it down."
"My talents lie elsewhere," she concedes. And she is his Donna for a moment, wry and warm, meeting his smile with her own.
"Leave the cooking to me, then."
A heavy silence falls. Needing connection, he brushes a strand of hair from her face. When she doesn't pull away, emboldened, he leans in, capturing her lips in a slow, searching kiss. She sighs against him, hands coming up to frame his face as she returns the caress, the scratch of his beard contrasting the softness of her mouth.
When they finally draw apart, she whispers, "Get some rest, Harvey."
He hesitates, reluctant to leave her but knowing she is asking to be alone. "If you need anything, call me," he says softly, hating how pathetic he sounds, how desperate.
She nods at him in acknowledgement, her body already angled away. He rises from her side, but hovers at the doorway, waiting for her to change her mind. Call him back into her bed where he knows they both want him. But she keeps her eyes closed like she's already asleep.
Downstairs, he finds Jonathan seated at the dining room table, nursing a glass of whiskey. He looks up at Harvey's entrance, irritatingly unbothered even as he surveys Harvey's wet hair and wrinkled shirt.
"She's asleep," Harvey says curtly.
Jonathan simply nods before turning his gaze back to his drink. In the low light, the man suddenly seems smaller to Harvey, diminished somehow. The arrogant posture is gone, replaced by pure exhaustion.
Looking at him, Harvey realizes with unpleasant surprise that Jonathan is not the monster he painted him to be. Just a man broken by tragedy and impossible choices. And it pisses him off, seeing glimpses of the man underneath the arrogance. He doesn't want to feel sympathy for the bastard. Doesn't want to see him as human.
"Thank you for letting Donna stay here," he forces past the clench of his pride.
Jonathan's eyes lift back to Harvey's, wary. After a searching look, he gives a single clipped nod. Message received.
The sound of heels on tile draws Harvey's attention. Rachel appears in the doorway, coat draped over her arm. "Ready?"
Harvey rubs a hand across his eyes. "Yeah. Let's go." With a final glance at Jonathan, he follows Rachel from the tense atmosphere.
In the elevator, Rachel turns to him hesitantly. "So...what's our next move?"
Harvey presses the heel of his hand against his temple where a headache pounds. He hates the conclusion his instincts are pushing him toward.
"We may need help on this one," he admits.
Rachel's eyes widen. "Please don't say —"
"Gibbs," Harvey interrupts with a grimace. "I hate it as much as you do, but she's principled and a damn good attorney. If she hears what happened to Jonathan, I think she'd be willing to help us."
Rachel processes this silently as the elevator drops toward the lobby. Finally she nods. "Okay. If you think it's our best option."
The doors slide open. Harvey sets his jaw, resolute. "I do."