A/N: This was inspired by a prompt by mmooresrafferty on Twitter: /mmooresrafferty/status/1683962727268507650
Title from "Fickle Game" by Amber Run. Hope you like it :)
"Mr. Specter, I need to give you your briefing before the status meeting," Gretchen trails him into his office, audibly agitated, and he guesses that's because this is the fourth time she's tried to get his attention this morning. But it's barely 11am and this has already been the day from hell - a surprise crisis in the Sony merger, an impromptu meeting with the Jurassic board president from Mythos and a failed trip downtown that was just a waste of time because the ADA had to leave for an emergency. He considered skipping the status meeting and going to the boxing gym to air his frustrations, but Jessica called him three times during that period and he just knows he'll never hear the end of it if he does skip it.
"Fine, just give me the streamlined version now," he huffs at her, setting down the files he brought back from the DA's and turning to her.
"Alright, well, for the Moritz case we have-"
"Harvey, what the hell?! We've been waiting for you for almost fifteen minutes," Jessica barges into his office, interrupting his secretary, and she looks positively livid, clearly going through it herself.
"I was down at the DA's-," he tries explaining, but the managing partner cuts him off.
"I don't give a shit. You're coming to the conference room now."
As she turns around and leaves, strutting down the corridor, he feels like gouging his eyes out. Instead, he huffs again, squares his jaw and points to Gretchen, "You're coming with."
None of the partners look too happy as he enters the room, followed by Gretchen, but he just ignores their dirty looks and makes his way to his usual spot. He notices Donna sitting in the corner, a notebook and pen in hand, and she doesn't even spare him a glance, focused on the blank page she's very clearly not writing on. It ticks him off for some reason - she wants to act all unaffected by this when he knows for a fact there's no way she's taking to working for Louis so well that she's forgotten their history already.
But whatever, if she wants to play this game, he can play too.
As he settles in, Gretchen quietly takes a seat next to Donna and they're all finally ready to start this goddamn meeting.
"Alright, everyone," Jessica starts, lacing her hands on top of the table, "Now that we're all here-"
"Point of order," Louis pipes up, and Harvey bravely resists the urge to roll his eyes.
After visibly swallowing a sigh, Jessica turns to him, "Yes, Louis."
"What is she doing here?" he points at Gretchen, "This is a partners-only meeting."
"She's here to share my updates, since I didn't have time to catch up this morning," Harvey explains, daring Louis to question that.
"For the record, it is a partner's duty to be fully up-to-date on his case developments at all times," the man spouts petulantly, and Harvey is one step away from grabbing Louis' tie and pulling the knot so tight his eyes bulge out.
"For the record, it is a partner's duty to know how to write his own notes," he fires back, implicitly referencing Donna, and he wishes he could see her reaction to that.
Louis turns red, "I nominated Donna as the official minute-taker of partner meetings for this quarter, you would know that if you'd read my memo-"
"Alright, that's enough," Jessica intervenes sternly, putting an end to the discussion, and Harvey shoots Louis a winning smirk as the man sulks in silence.
The meeting finally starts, and Harvey works hard not to look too bored as the other partners share their recent case developments and incoming updates. He couldn't give less of a shit about all this, and he desperately needs to get back to his own cases, but Jessica implemented these meetings as a way to keep closer tabs on what's happening in her firm, and, even though he is a name partner, he doesn't want to demoralize her by not playing along.
After Maureen comments on her one million consumer complaint cases, managing to bore him to within an inch of his life, it's his turn. He gives them a brief rundown of his day and gives it over to Gretchen.
"Well, the Moritz IP case is currently in the Court of Appeals, just got put on the docket for ruling on the 8th of next month. We have a deadline next Tuesday for the rejoinder on the Hasbro case, and John Asbaum has his next SEC hearing this Friday. The Sony board scheduled another meeting tomorrow about the merger," the woman explains, reading the items off her list, and Harvey is in the middle of mentally organizing the information and visualizing his schedule for the next few days when he sees Donna lean towards Gretchen and whisper something to her.
Gretchen's eyes widen and she seems distracted as she says "And, uh, the Leibz ruling came in this morning, our injunctive relief was granted."
It's good news, but the way Gretchen shoots Donna an unreadable look after she finishes speaking annoys him. He doesn't know what the other woman told his secretary, but it clearly threw her off her game, and he never thought of Donna as someone who would try to sabotage someone else, much less him, but the past few weeks have shown him he clearly doesn't know her as well as he thought he did.
There's no rational thought behind it - he probably wouldn't have said it loud if there had been, not in front of all his partners -, he's just so stressed out and overworked and he's been unwell for weeks and this whole situation with Donna is just not something he ever thought he would need to handle and is having a much harder time doing so than he could have imagined.
So, before he can stop himself, and because anger and resentment are boiling inside of him like a pressure cooker, he grits his teeth and says, "What was that, Donna, care to share with the class?"
Donna instantly looks up from her notebook, caught off guard like a deer in headlights, and the slight color tinting her cheeks gives him a perverse sense of satisfaction.
"It's alright, Mr. Specter," Gretchen tries to intervene but he doesn't let her.
"No, no, let's hear what was so important she had to interrupt you for it," he presses further. He's aware of all the eyes on him but he's looking straight at Donna, ready to catch her every movement, no matter how small. He's been put through the wringer every day since she abandoned him, and, as cruel as it may be, he just really wants to watch her squirm.
She swallows, squaring her shoulders subtly, and he knows she's gearing up for battle, probably getting ready to fire back some sort of zinger. He prepares himself as well.
"I noticed Gretchen didn't write down the Leibz ruling on her list and I was just giving her a heads up about it in case she forgot, which she didn't," Donna replies stoically.
Humiliation instantly burns his neck and cheeks as the silence in the room grows thick enough to cut with a knife.
It's already bad enough that his secretary messed up in front of everybody; it's even worse that Donna had to correct her. And the absolute, fucking worst part of it all is that he was the one who exposed that fact to everyone in the room. He set out to embarrass her and it backfired massively against him.
He's still staring at her as his mind runs a million miles an hour, and she holds his gaze, eyes piercing his. She doesn't look triumphant nor smug; she looks like she knows what he was trying to do, like she didn't fall for it at all, and he feels like a spoiled, bratty child throwing a tantrum while the adults roll their eyes. It's not fair that he is this out of sorts while she just goes on with her life as if nothing happened.
It feels like an eternity but it's probably just a few seconds later that Jessica shoots him a sly look and clears her throat. "Alright. Thank you, Gretchen. Paul?"
Harvey zones out for the remainder of the meeting, brain buzzing and mouth fuzzy. He keeps stealing glances at Donna, but she never looks back, and it grates on him, this distance between them. He misses the time when their eyes would find each other in any room and they would instantly understand what the other was thinking; now it's like they don't even speak the same language.
When the thing is finally done, he is eager to get out of there, feeling suffocated by the room and everyone in it. He knows Jessica is gonna bite his head off for his little stunt, but he's not ready to take it just yet, so, as everyone goes back to their offices, Harvey escapes to the executive kitchen, hoping to find it empty so he can get himself some coffee in peace and try to reset his brain enough to continue working.
His wish does not come true, however, and he almost turns on his heels and leaves when he sees red hair and a designer dress, but Donna must hear him and looks over her shoulder before he can escape unnoticed. She doesn't stare, goes back to her own coffee less than a second later, and it gets to him again, how flippant she's been, how nonchalant.
Theirs is the longest relationship he's ever had, and he knows the same is true for her. He doesn't understand how she can be so good at pretending he's just like everyone else, as if he's not the person she knows best in the whole world and vice-versa - even though that's exactly what he tried doing to her.
Except she left him, not the other way around, and he guesses that should be confirmation that he's not as special to her as he once thought he was. And that possibility stings, bruises his pride and his feelings, and, though she hasn't actually put forth any attacks, he wants to attack her right back, the moment back at the conference room insufficient to quell his bitterness.
The fact that they're alone, that there's no one else to witness his potential humiliation, emboldens him, and he finally walks fully into the kitchen, making his way to the island. "Louis not giving you enough work?"
"Hm?" she turns, looking genuinely surprised he even spoke to her.
"You must have plenty of free time if you're keeping tabs on my cases." He can hear the hurt beneath his harsh words, knows his cocky stance and locked jaw do nothing to mask it, not from her, but he forges ahead in his role, unwilling to let her see through his veneer.
Donna is, once again, miles ahead of him, and he's so used to it by now he doesn't even have the energy to be annoyed. Her brows crease the tiniest bit as she analyzes him, but her demeanor doesn't change - she doesn't break, doesn't explode, she doesn't let him rattle her. She just watches him, a certain compassion in her gaze that he hates, and eventually sighs, her lips pressed together.
"I told you I had no intention of leaving you high and dry, Harvey," she says simply, quietly.
"Funny, that's exactly the intention I thought you had when you told me I was on my own when I came to you for help two weeks ago," he grits out, and the words graze his throat as he lets them out, the sense of betrayal he felt that day still aching like a recent wound.
Donna frowns, the first real, human reaction he gets from her, and she finally looks something akin to bruised. "That was me setting boundaries, Harvey, doesn't mean I magically stopped caring about you. What just happened should have been enough proof of that." Her voice is sad, stable but a little defensive, as if she finally decided to step into the ring with him.
Except that brings him none of the satisfaction he thought it would. He thought if he could just get a punch in, one in the face of dozens she's been landing, he'd feel avenged, but all it did was make them both battered. And he's not ready to throw in the towel just yet, feels anger sparking in his fingers, spoiling for another round at some point in the near future, but the reality of what they became pales in comparison to what they used to be and it makes the bitterness recede a bit, giving way to plain sorrow. He knows he's not easy, knows he contributed to this, but why did she have to leave? Why did she not want to be them anymore?
More of his anger dissolves into sadness as they look at each other, silently finding something familiar in each other's gaze, and he suddenly misses her terribly even as she stands a few feet away from him. He wants to turn back time, wants to undo whatever he did that led them here, wants to change her mind and make her stay.
He searches for something to say, something that won't be him folding but won't be him upping the stakes either. Before he can land on something, Morgan's secretary barges into the room, smiling obliviously at them in greeting, and Donna is shaken out of their common spell, throwing the girl a smile in return and collecting her mug. She leaves the room with her head down, a dog with its tail between its legs if he's ever seen one, and it sucks out any residual satisfaction that might have been hiding inside of him. He leaves right after her, giving her a one-second lead just so that he doesn't run into her again on his way out, and goes back to his office.
Her final words hammer inside his brain. That was me setting boundaries, Harvey, doesn't mean I magically stopped caring about you. She's said as much before, and he doesn't fully understand it, not really, because why would you need boundaries from someone if you care about them? Why not let the two of you mesh and meld together, why not become inseparable? For all his faults, he has never wanted to leave Donna, and she knows that. So why did she want to leave him? Because he refused to commit to some harebrained idea of what they could become, an idea she herself made him promise twelve years ago never to consider?
But there's also a part of him - the more earnest part of him, the part that's not holding on to this grudge like it's a lifeline, even though right now that's exactly what it feels like it is - that knows Donna didn't stop caring about him. Donna is the most caring person he's ever met, and as much as he resents her for leaving, as much as he is certain she knew it would hurt him and still went ahead with it anyway, he knows it's simply not that easy to stop caring about someone.
The fact that he still cares about Donna as much as he always has is Exhibit A.
So, even though he hates that she wanted boundaries and hates that she went ahead and set them and hates that he's left on the outside looking in, as much as he hates the panic attacks and having to rely on Rachel and the way he feels off-balance every single day, he knows, ultimately, that none of it came from Donna not caring about him.
And that doesn't fix things. It doesn't really make anything better - she's still gone, he's still adrift. But it's the truth. It's why she offered him that stupid list of replacements and why she spoke up at the meeting, to help, because she cares. And he thinks he's justified in almost everything he's been feeling since she left, but maybe... maybe he wasn't justified just now.
Lord knows his career never would have gotten this far without Donna, he would have likely crashed and burned a million times by now, and Gretchen is good but she's still learning.
Donna helped. He makes himself accept that fact.
As he enters his office, still lost in thought, he's surprised to find Gretchen sitting on the chair opposite his, seemingly waiting for him. As soon as she hears him, she stands up, clutching her notebook.
"Mr. Specter, Ms. Paulsen was just trying to help. It was my fault, I forgot to check the Leibz case for updates," the woman rushes to clarify, and he feels a surge of respect for her; it takes a big person to admit to a mistake and not take the easy way out.
"I know," he mutters, pursing his lips.
"She wasn't interrupting me, she was telling me about the ruling because I didn't know," Gretchen insists.
"I know," Harvey repeats, walking past her and looking out the window. He is not one to pay too much attention to his feelings - it distracts him from the actual important stuff - but this time it's like he's drowning in them, feeling so many things at once he can barely identify them. It's something he doesn't know how to fix, doesn't know if he can, but every day that Donna spends working at Louis' desk is another sign that he should learn, because he can't keep living like this. Especially not if...
He hears Gretchen retreating, probably hoping to leave him alone, but he calls her name before she's out of the room.
"Later today, I need you to ask Donna for the latest report we drafted for McKernon Motors," he says quietly, turning around with his hands in his pockets. It's a flimsy excuse, one he knows the woman sees right through because they both know very well the report is stored in their database and Gretchen is perfectly capable of finding it herself. But she has the good sense not to question it, simply nodding her understanding.
"And tell Donna I asked her to give you a rundown of their corporate structure one more time, just to be sure," he adds, trying not to sound as embarrassed as he feels.
"I will tell her just that," Gretchen nods again, and he thinks he sees the faintest ghost of a smile form on her lips. He fights off a blush, a different kind of embarrassment now, and an infantile sense of pride at having given the right answer. As Gretchen goes back to her cubicle, he exhales heavily, taking one last second to regroup, and then sits down at his desk, ready to get back to work.
His gesture won't magically make everything okay, but it's a gesture nonetheless, one he knows Donna will recognize. It's not much, but at least it's him building bridges instead of burning them.
He just hopes someday soon they'll have built enough bridges to find their way back to each other.
