Prompt #33 by irony4all: "During season 9, Donna and Harvey attend a holiday work event as an official couple, catching Scottie by surprise when she discovers their newfound relationship. As the night unfolds, Donna, Harvey, and Scottie share a heartfelt conversation about their pasts and presents. Later, back at Harvey's condo, they debrief their interaction with Scottie, leading to another meaningful and intimate conversation."

Scottie arrived late, when the party was already in full swing. Truth be told, she hadn't planned on attending at all until she'd heard along the New York lawyer grapevine that a particular client she'd been after for months, who was finally on the cusp of abandoning Specter Litt Wheeler Williams in the fallout of the Zane scandal, would be attending. Perhaps this could be the chance she needed to get the CEO in question away from their interfering executive committee for a moment of let-me-give-it-to-you-straight lawyer speak. Which was how Scottie found herself rifling through the waste paper bin for that holiday party invite and shimmying into her emergency cocktail dress in the firm's women's restroom, a dress she kept stashed in the wardrobe in her corner office for occasions just like this.

It was like any old holiday party in any dimly-lit cocktail bar in the city that would be taking place on any given night between now and the end of the year. Christmas-themed cocktails, red and green canapés, waiters dressed in white shirts, black waistcoats and Santa-adorned bowties bearing trays of champagne and bottled Perrier both imported expressly from France for drinkers and non-drinkers respectively. Nondescript café jazz renditions of Christmas tunes jingled in the background, behind the thrum of enthusiastic conversation. The New York legal scene was just as happy as any to reach the end of the year.

Scottie spied a well-stocked bar off to one side and made a mental note to treat herself to a whisky once she'd cornered her target. For now, she navigated the well-heeled crowd with as many nods and how are yous as she could manage without getting cornered herself.

In hindsight, she supposed she should have known that if a client of SLWW was to be at this party, then at least an S, an L, and one, if not both, of the Ws would be there as well. So when she spied Louis espousing the benefits of the green and red cocktail to a skeptical-looking Alex, Scottie knew without even having to scan the room, that Harvey would be there too. And wherever Harvey went, Donna was never very far behind. She grasped a flute of Ruinart champagne from a passing waiter and turned to survey the crowd. Her target for the evening now long forgotten.

They were on the far side, standing just apart from everyone in that way that Harvey and Donna tended to do; as though they were both sizing up the room in preparation for their attack, and at the same time seeing themselves as entirely separate; an independent force operating at their own frequency that was somehow exclusive to the two of them. And no matter how much you might try to bridge the gap to them and join their sphere, that magnetic force which bound them together simultaneously shielded them, and forced you out.

There were scant few who had succeeded in breaching the divide. Mike and Rachel. Louis. Perhaps Alex and Samantha to an extent, although those relationships might be limited to the time spent at the same firm. That Harvey would always be bound to Donna by an invisible thread was certain, but in 30 years, whether he would still be calling Samantha or Alex, on that, Scottie was less sure. Will he still be calling me? She didn't like to linger on the thought but found it nonetheless no longer stung the way it might once have.

She sipped her drink and drank them in. They stood side by side, perfectly aligned as they always were, but when Donna spoke to him – likely a shrewd observation about something important to Harvey and his work (because it was always about his work) – Harvey couldn't help but turn himself to face her, standing ever too close to her, as he usually did.

Scottie used to pity Donna, that Harvey should have such control over her, that she would allow him such an imposition, enable him to be such a deflecting force for anyone else who might otherwise take their shot with the elegant redhead. But she'd come to realise that it was as much Harvey who deserved her pity, as it was Donna. Harvey, who was helpless to realise his own feelings for her, to see what everyone sees, and that he was as much trapped in her forcefield as she was in his.

They were engaged in what she could only call in her head their Darvey repartee. Harvey said something and Donna laughed and there was a mock protest and then a tongue poking out in jest and, Jesus they were standing so close together. They are so loud, Scottie thought. How can they not see it?

It was like it was happening on film, in slow motion. That she was not in the room with them, but a spectator looking on from afar, to a world to which she didn't belong. Like watching a film and knowing, however successful the realisation, that you were still on the sofa and the protagonists behind the screen.

A camera pushing in to closeup, tracing the length of Harvey and Donna standing face to face, taking in the sharpness of Donna's Louboutins, the elegance of her deep green Maticevski gown, simple yet dramatic, without even needing plunges or slits to make a statement about the grace it contained. That imaginary camera traced the line of their bodies, highlighting again how narrow the gap was between them, showcasing the smooth ribbon of Tom Ford tuxedo pants and a hint of designer cufflink, before capturing a hand – Harvey's – in motion, charting a gentle, intimate line up Donna's bare arm, caressing her elbow, squeezing her shoulder, and then using that shoulder as an anchor (for wasn't Donna forever Harvey's anchor?) as he leant towards her.

And then, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, Harvey leaned in. Though Donna mock-resisted, eventually, she allowed him a brief peck on the lips, a peck which still seemed, to Scottie, to take a lifetime to pass as she stood there looking on, her champagne warming under the iron grip of her hand on the flute. A kiss that was as natural and rudimentary and welcomed as if they'd done it a thousand times before. A kiss that Harvey at least, from where she was standing, took a moment to savour, blink of an eye as it was, that his eyes fluttered closed, the crease at his brow somewhat relaxed and a kind of wave washed through his body even in that briefest of intimacy, a flush of contentment, reassurance, home.

As Harvey rolled back into his place with his shit-eating grin, as Donna rolled her eyes at his hubris before offering him a wide smile of her own, as her arm came up to meet the one that held her shoulder, as she squeezed his elbow in return stepping towards and beside him, as his arm continued its journey to thread around her waist, and as they stood together as they had a thousand times before, side by side, forever each other's soldier, the penny dropped like dead weight between Scottie's eyes. Zoom to extreme close-up, to her own moment of truth and realization. Harvey and Donna: together together. And if she hadn't known better herself, she would have sworn that – standing here as they were with this new, public intimacy – this was how they'd always stood together. Hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm, as much a part of each other as any two people could ever hope to be.

Scottie watched as Alex approach them with a woman she assumed was his wife, and the sheer mundanity of them standing there chatting. This isn't news to anyone here, except me, she ultimately determined.

Donna had sensed they had an audience when Harvey was pestering her about his superior gift-buying skills but lately, she'd been focusing on being present with him. Tuning out her instinct to be his girl Friday and transition fully – when they were off the clock and able to just be – into being his girlfriend. That meant resisting the urge to read minds and deploy her Donna vision to all that passed around them and instead rest in the moment with him.

So she'd let him rib her and she'd conceded to his altogether very chaste form of "payment" for being right, and she'd even cursed the traitor within her, that her heart had raced as he leant towards her. That despite how natural this felt and how well things were going, she still sometimes felt a bit giddy about it all. Even boring things like the way, when he turned back to face the room at her side, his hand had settled comfortably on her waist. When Alex appeared with Rosalie and the conversation turned to the finer points of car club membership, Donna allowed herself the grace of discrete side-eye observation of what passed around them and it was at that moment then, it became apparent to her that not only was Scottie at this party, but she also had them in her direct line of vision.

Scottie couldn't help herself, she liked playing with fire, even if it meant sometimes getting burnt. Another of my self-destructive traits, she thought grimly, as she made her way through the crowd towards her quarry.

"Of all of the holiday parties in the city..."

Donna turned from rudimentary small talk with someone's executive assistant to the voice at her elbow.

"Scottie," she greeted.

The brunette nodded. "Donna," she replied.

"Drink?"

"Let's."

A waiter materialised before them as if summoned by their mere words and they each took a flute of Ruinart, clinked them together, and then sipped. There was a pause in contemplation, likely mulling over the room before them and the mountains of shared history that was piled up in their wake, all under the cover of assessing the quality of their champagne.

"I'm happy for you, Donna," Scottie said. They stood side by side and she didn't look to the taller woman but rather out at the party that stretched before them.

"Thank you, Scottie." Donna knew immediately to what Scottie was referring and didn't think there was anything else to say.

They each took another sip.

"You know when we were in college, one of Harvey's roommates managed to swipe a copy of our Torts exam from the professor's desk," Scottie spoke slightly too fast, lest Donna might lose interest and walk away from her mid-sentence. She gulped as Donna frowned in confusion. "The roommate wanted to sell the test and Harvey wanted to keep it just to themselves, to let only the two of them benefit. When the roommate persisted with his dubious little side hustle, Harvey told me about it because he knew I'd turn the roommate in. The first of many examples of Harvey using me to do his dirty work…"

"He's not the same person as he was back then." Donna knew the brunette wasn't wrong in the anecdote she related, but she saw no merit in a quarrel either.

"Isn't he?"

Donna turned to face her.

"What's your real question, Dana?"

Scottie could hardly be surprised at this turn, Donna had never been one to shy away from a blunt question, nor afraid to turn the spotlight back in the other direction.

"You and Harvey…you have a long history. Ever…overlap?"

"If you're genuinely asking that question Dana, then you've already decided the answer, and nothing I say will ever change your mind." Donna looked around for an escape.

"Which means it was me, I was the problem," Scottie said, hurried again. "I was the cancer in our relationship." She grimaced. "I always used to tell myself it was you, that you were the reason we couldn't make it work, but that just isn't true. I was never going to turn him into the man that he wanted to be."

Realisation dawned and Donna stopped looking for an escape, instead turning her attention fully to the other woman.

"The people we love along the way, they shape us and we shape them," she said. "I know it might seem strange, coming from me, but he did genuinely love you, and you have helped him, in so many ways, to get to where he is today…"

"…kept him out of the Vice Chancellor's office…"

"…and out of jail," Donna quipped in response.

They shared a smile.

"It might not have seemed like it all the time," Donna continued, "but he knows that he owes a debt to you and he is grateful for what you've done for him."

"You know what I learned from you two?"

Donna searched Scottie's face for an indication as to where this was going but for once her mind reading came up empty.

"What's that?" she asked, taking another sip for fortitude.

"It's one of those things that you know without really knowing until you've actually seen it or lived it. Or when you go a really long time without seeing it and you forget about it until it's there in front of you again…"

"Scottie," Donna interrupted, "don't take this the wrong way, but…"

"…get to the point?" She grinned to show that she was not offended. "Sorry, it's this being a lawyer thing, you always want to build to a point in as dramatic a way as possible, it's hard to turn off." Her lip caught her teeth, a tiny betrayal of her projected composure.

"Continue, you learned…"

"People always talk about how there are many ways to love someone. The way you love your sister is different from the way you love your dog and your group of girlfriends and your favourite barista and your favourite book and of course your first love, or your great love, or your forever love." Scottie paused, drank, swallowed.

"Watching the two of you showed me that you can love someone completely for who they are to you in your life at that single moment, in a way that makes sense to you both, at that time. And even if that love is destined to evolve and change, that maybe what it was, there in that moment, was enough for then. Am I making any sense?"

Donna nodded but didn't say anything so Scottie plunged on.

"When you were his secretary and I was his girlfriend, he loved you completely for who you were in his life, but that's not to say that a part of him couldn't also love me too. Or at least the idea of me." She shrugged again. "It wasn't quite enough in the long run to defy the fate seemingly stacked against us, but I'd like to think it was real. I hope that somehow, some part of it was real, even if only fleetlingly."

Donna hoped her expression didn't look like she was pitying the other woman.

"I know, Scottie, and for what it's worth, I am sure it felt real to him too."

Sometime later, after she'd lined her stomach with duck pancakes and smoked salmon blinis with miso cream cheese, used up her entire yearly bandwidth for Louis Litt in only 45 seconds, after asking about his wedding plans, Scottie found herself approaching the bar in search of that glass of whisky. A lone barstool was occupied and if her step faltered a tiny moment when she realised it was Harvey, well, she gave herself credit that no one around her would have been able to tell.

"Room for one more up there?"

He turned at the sound of her voice and nodded, attempting to arrange his expression such that she felt welcome, and if it didn't quite reach a smile, so be it. He liked his quiet moments of contemplation over a glass of scotch but he had no reason to refuse her. He gestured to the man at the bar to pour her a drink that matched his own. She acknowledged it with a tip of her glass towards him before taking a sip and allowing the rich, smoky flavour to swirl and disperse before she spoke.

"Some party, hmm?"

Harvey swallowed and hummed in response.

"Christmas plans?" Scottie tried again.

"You want to talk about Christmas plans? Is that what we do now?" Harvey raised an eyebrow and took another sip. At this rate, this conversation would require at least two or three more whiskies and he wasn't sure that Donna would forgive him if she had to drag him out of here legless.

"Jeez, Harvey, I'm just making conversation. There's no need to be such a giant dick about it." She furrowed her brow and scowled at him.

"When have we ever done small talk?"

He turned on his chair to face her, and while it wasn't confrontational – she could tell by his still-present softened edges that he wasn't spoiling for a fight – there was a level of exasperation that made her realise that perhaps he was just done bothering with her. That whatever brittle and tenuous truce they might have found just wasn't worth his time anymore. Until he needed something again.

"Fine. Don't talk to me," she snapped. "Don't tell me how you are, what's going on in your life, new opportunities, huge, life-changing developments, don't tell me any of that. Don't do what friends do, right, because that would mean you cared, Harvey, wouldn't it?"

Harvey traced the tension in her fingers as she gestured with her hands throughout her outburst.

"And if we're not friends, why even bother at all, right? Until you need something, of course," Scottie paused to laugh sarcastically, "and then suddenly it's all what's going on over there, how was your Christmas, how's that dog you adopted, that new apartment you bought…"

"You adopted a dog?"

Her laugh turned to exasperation. "Of course that's the thing you would fixate on. You never change, do you?" She shook her head and went back to her drink, turning away, as if to shield herself from him.

Harvey allowed a moment to pass before he spoke.

"What did you want me to do Scottie? Call you up and say, remember how I was going to call you one day when I'd fixed myself, well I'm actually calling you to say that I've been an idiot for 15 years and of course I'm in love with Donna and it turns out she's in love with me too and we're actually deliriously happy together and this is it, forever, for us, there is no one else on this Earth that will make me happy while she is on it and….just thought you should know?"

Scottie blanched at his outburst, but found it didn't sting as much as she'd thought it would, hearing it said out loud. After all, she'd seen it coming for a long time too and she had long ago given up any notion that she and Harvey would end up together.

"You about done there?" She gave him a pointed look.

"I think so." His spoke with the gravely tone of contrition. "Since you asked, we're doing Christmas with Donna's parents and New Years in Seattle with Mike and Rachel."

Scottie huffed a smile and looked down at the dregs of her whisky. Lord, how this man made her drink!

"See how easy that was?" she insisted.

"You know I don't like an elephant in the room," he replied.

"You are the elephant in the room, Harvey, stomping all over things and blasting everyone with your trumpet, leaving disaster in your wake and never stopping to think about cleaning things up."

"You're right," he sighed. "And for what it's worth, Donna has the same complaint. I told you I was a work in progress." He gestured to the bar for another whisky – his last, he promised himself and the Donna in his head – and looked to see if Scottie wanted one too. She accepted with a roll of her eyes.

"You drive me to drink, Specter," she said drily. "This conversation was much smoother with Donna and we only needed champagne to see us through."

"Ah, so you already neutralised opposing counsel and this is where you deliver the final blow?"

"Not everything is about showing one another up, you know," she replied. She thanked the barman with a nod of her head and took a reinforcing gulp. "This is why we could never get on the same page, we could never make it work, because it was always, always, always a competition with you. You could never just let me win…"

"That's not true and you know it," Harvey interjected, getting heated once more. "I always did the best for my client, and even then, there were times where I put you first, where I let things go for you… for us."

"Fine, whatever, in legal situations, sure, you didn't win every single case, you could settle a case and feel satisfied by your code," she gestured air quotes witheringly, "but when it came to us, you could never, ever, concede the upper hand. You always had to have the final say, you were always waiting to point out that I'd violated your personal ethics, you always had to have that one thing up your sleeve ready to throw in my face whenever you let us down."

Harvey stayed silent while Scottie stared into space.

"God, this was so much easier with Donna." She chuckled mirthlessly and turned again to face him. "I know you know how lucky you are to have her, and I'm not here to pit us against each other. Because what you did with me, with our relationship, the shit you pulled, she will never let you do that to her."

She took a sip and held up her hand at Harvey as he made to speak, indicating she wasn't finished.

"And I know you won't pull that shit with her either. You don't want to, I can see that. You can concede the upper hand with her in a way that you never could with me. And I am happy for you Harvey, and I'm happy for her too, whatever that's worth to you. Even if I feel sorry for her for having to put up with your shit for eternity."

A pointed look gave way to a smirk which Harvey returned.

"I'm sorry, Dana," he said, once again serious. "You're right, about a lot of it, maybe even all of it, I don't know." Harvey fiddled with his drink, twirling the glass around and around on the coaster until Scottie wanted to grab it out of his hands. She bit down on her lip and balled her fists to stop herself as he finally looked up at her again.

"But I do know this; I didn't choose to be one way with her and one way with you. I am the way I am because of both of you having been in my life, and it just so happens that Donna brings out the best version of me. She makes me want to be that better person, the one you've rightly pointed out that I haven't always been. For whatever it's worth to you, I'm sorry Scottie, that you got caught in that crossfire."

She paused in contemplation, to let the statement and the sentiment breathe, and in acknowledgement, as a certain redhead began to linger in the periphery, getting closer and closer, that this moment between the two of them was about to end.

"Okay, truce," she said eventually. She clinked their near-empty glasses together in surrender.

"We should do this again sometime," Harvey finished his drink and stepped off his stool, turning towards the direction from which Donna was appearing, having also observed her in his vicinity. "Talk more about that dog you adopted. I bet that's a great story…"

Scottie rolled her eyes for the umpteenth time that evening as she finished her own drink.

"I won't hold my breath," she replied, and though he was still somewhat there before her, she'd lost him to Donna's orbit, once more.

"That was some conversation you were locked in with Scottie," Donna commented as Harvey handed her a glass of amber liquid and then settled on the couch beside her. They were at his place, the faux fire alight to one side and radiating its electric heat, her shoes kicked off beneath the coffee table and feet tucked beneath herself.

Harvey's jacket hung over one of their dining chairs, his bowtie discarded on the table beside it. He raised an eyebrow at her. "Locked in?"

Donna smirked at his bluster before turning serious. "Don't make me Donna you, Harvey. I spoke to her too."

He heaved a reluctant sigh. "I know, she told me," he replied. "She said it was far easier talking to you than it was to me."

"Well, no surprises there. You've got the emotional range of that glass of whisky. Smooth at first, but go too hard and all you get is burnt."

"I don't know what it is about her and me," Harvey said slowly. He set his drink on the table and swivelled towards her. "We're just incapable of having a straightforward conversation. It's like, I look at her, and I see all of my worst features glaring back at me."

He rubbed a hand over his face and took a deep breath, in and out. Donna sat silently, giving him space to consider his words before he continued. He reached that same hand towards her, resting it on her folded knees as though grappling for the strength to continue.

"I don't mean to say that she's the worst version of me, or even that she's to blame for all those worst bits of me, it's not that at all."

"You just look at her and she reminds you of the times you failed?"

"The times I let her down, the times I let you down because I didn't listen to you about her or some case she was involved in, or just simply because I thought I knew better. The kind of person that I was when I was around her, I just don't really like that guy." He looked at the floor.

Donna put her hand over his on her knee and he turned his hand up to squeeze it, weaving their fingers together with care.

"The time you spent together helped shape you into the man you are today. And how you loved each other also informs how you love now. Your family, your friends, your firm."

"And you," he mumbled.

"While we waited a long time to figure out how to be together," Donna returned, "we also get the benefit of having learned from our mistakes, knowing each where the other needs support, each how to be a better partner, and for you, mister," she pouted at him with that pointed look that he'd borne from her so many times and that he loved just as much as every other part of her, and oh God, this was a serious conversation but he was equally swamped in that moment with how much he loved her. Jesus, he loved her. Unfortunately, he didn't cover his lapse in attention well enough because she stopped talking and looked at him exasperatedly.

"Are you about done there? I'm trying to comfort and reassure you here, the least you could do is pay attention while I'm soothing your goddamn ego."

He straightened his expression, "I'm sorry, you're right, go on." But he could tell she wasn't actually mad at him.

"As I was saying, before you spaced out on me, you deciding to put someone else's needs above your own, was a lesson slowly learned. Scottie helped set you on that journey, and you can be proud of how far we've all come."

"Even if it comes at her expense?"

"She's a whole grown ass person, you know," Donna replied. "She played her part in the game as much as any of us did, and she made her own choices too. Turning her into a martyr or a passive bystander does her no credit. She's not some wallflower crying herself to sleep in the corner every night over Harvey Specter. She's a success, a warrior, a boss, and you can't take that away from her." She paused, and changed tack. "But maybe," she relented, "maybe she does have you to thank for some of it too, in some small part."

"So, what you're saying is, glory be to Harvey Specter, and the gift he has been to the both of you."

Smug Harvey was particularly irritating.

"Jesus Christ, for all the progress you've made, it's always two steps forward, a hundred steps back, isn't it?" she said dropping his hand. "You really know how to make it all about you."

"You know that math doesn't make any sense?"

Donna drew in and expelled a deep breath.

"Harvey, please," she said eventually.

"I'm kidding, Donna, you know I am. It's what my therapist calls deflecting, but you're too Donna to need me to tell you that." He scooted closer to her on the couch, taking both hands in his and pulling her towards him. In spite of herself, Donna let him draw her in.

"I just got distracted while you were speaking to me thinking about how goddamn much I love you, Donna." He squeezed her hands as she swallowed. "Imagine that, you're right here, talking me off the ledge as you always do, helping me understand my own messed up headspace, you're with me, always, and now we're really, properly together, and I still can't help but catch my breath and lose my head over you."

He paused and gave her a crooked smile which she returned with a wobbly one of her own.

"I love you, Donna Paulsen, you are it for me," he said. "No matter how many years we have, I am going to spend every goddamn day making sure you know it."

Harvey looked directly into her eyes, as if to etch every word into her, onto her, through the sheer force of his gaze. His expression reminded her of the night he'd come to her door, after Robert had been disbarred and the epiphany had struck him, struck them both, and so she let him draw her into a heartfelt hug.

He pulled back enough to press his lips to hers, and it was insistent and urgent and tender all in one. He stroked her cheek and ran his fingers down the column of her throat to settle on her clavicle. They broke apart, foreheads resting together, eyes closed, the energy between them charged, as it frequently was, the moment still heavy in its emotion. They breathed in perfect synchronicity.

Finally, it was Donna who moved, twisting once again to settle against his side, head nestled into his shoulder and arm wrapped across him, around his waist. He kissed the side of her head and breathed her in.

"I know, Harvey," Donna said. "And I love you too."