Set several days after their 'break-up' at the end of Season 4. For the purposes of this fic, they haven't talked since.
[three nights ago]
Donna finishes filling up both glasses, making her way back over to Harvey with the sound of his laughter — genuine laughter — still hanging in the air between them as she sits. Their fingers brush as he takes the wine from her, and all of a sudden he's looking at her like she's the sun and she has neither the strength nor the will to try and stop him.
"Thank you, Harvey," she says, for something to say.
He blinks, tells her that she's already thanked him, doesn't look away. He's so beautiful. It's not something she could ever say to him, certainly not now and possibly not ever — but oh, he is. Lit soft by the warm light of her apartment. She just can't stop looking, and apparently neither can he.
"I told you I'd never let anything happen to you," he says, pausing, and Donna feels as the scrape of protectiveness to his words starts to unfurl beneath her ribs. "And I won't ever. So you don't ever have to feel scared like that again."
Donna draws a careful breath. The silence stretches between them — he wants so desperately just to shield her from all of this, from every awful thing, except the world doesn't work like that. She's the sunrise, and he loves her like breathing, but he could jump in front of a bullet for her and she'd give all the blood in her veins just to save his life anyway.
He finally looks away, glancing instead at the myriad lit candles which litter the apartment. Donna almost blushes at the question in his eyes — did she light these for him? (Yes. Yes, yes, yeah, yes.)
"I thought you didn't do the comfort thing," she says, arching an eyebrow.
Harvey flinches almost imperceptibly. (Deflecting. Is she deflecting? Is it too late? Did he wait too long?)
"I didn't say I do it," he only responds, mustering a half-smile. "I said I didn't have time, because I was so busy saving your ass." He offers what he can. Hides here, from the weight of all this, right along with her.
He takes another sip of his wine, glancing away from her for as long as he can bear to. Except — oh, Christ, he looks back at her, and she hasn't taken her eyes off of him, and there's so much love carved into her expression that the glass almost shatters in Harvey's hand.
Her eyes flick down to his white-knuckle grip. For a minute, she doesn't say a thing.
Until: "I'm sorry I doubted you."
He shakes his head.
"I'm sorry I snapped at you."
Harvey lets his posture sag a little, and Donna watches it happen, watches as he fixes her with that look of his. The same one he passed across to her through the darkness just yesterday. The one which reads like surrender and sounds a whole lot like the thought of you going to prison makes me want to drop to my knees.
Donna hasn't stopped thinking about those words since he first said them: she won't move on. She doesn't know how.
This feels like the beginning of something. Does it? Does it? Everything's being laid bare here, and she doesn't speak, so he just— oh god. He keeps talking. He keeps talking.
He holds her gaze.
"Anyone else ever loses faith in me, it doesn't matter."
Donna's breath catches. When Harvey speaks again, it's quiet. Gentle. Terrified.
"But with you it's different."
Her mouth falls open slightly, just a little, just enough that he can tell she wasn't expecting it. Because this is Donna. At a loss for words. She reaches for something, for anything, clawing through the darkness for a single thing to respond with.
She looks almost devastated. For a terrible moment, Harvey worries that he's done something terrible. (Has he? Has he? Has he?)
Donna only blinks and he mimics, blink pause blink: tears in his eyes, tears in hers.
"I should go."
It's too much. He's said too much. His evasion is so automatic that it feels like gunfire, and he watches as Donna swallows. Man down. Harvey stands to leave and he won't look at her, and he hates himself. This is how it is between them: he crosses this line, steps on the pressure plate. He sprints. She suffers. He's grabbing his coat from off the back of one of her chairs when she finally speaks, and all at once they both know that he's done for.
"Why?"
It's not anger, but it could be. Exhaustion, maybe. Want.
"You know why."
Because he's fucked, up and they can't come back from this — because it's them. Because you can never go back.
Of course she knows. She's shaking her head, just slightly, but oh, god, of course she does.
Then he tilts his head at her like she's being the difficult one, like it's obvious, curls a terrified fist into the fabric of his suit. When he finally speaks again, it comes too fast, spills out past his lips before he can think to refine the words.
"You know I love you, Donna."
And then he leaves. And she doesn't stop him. And it's the worst thing he'll ever do.
[two nights ago]
"I think you're one of the most amazing women I've ever met, and just because I don't—"
"I'm leaving you, Harvey."
It's like a punch to the throat. The air runs white-cold between them, the warmth tripping from his face as he pales.
"…What?"
Harvey chokes the word out, forces it from his tightening throat, fights hard against the sob which lingers there.
"This isn't working for me anymore," she murmurs, sees more than hears the way he swallows back his guilt. Harvey stands, unsteady, moves around his desk and towards her through the darkness of his office.
He tries to mitigate. Tries to placate. It's all just plastic, all hopeless, shards of panic stapling themselves to his skin as he speaks.
"You just need to give it time," he attempts at last, hands shaking as he fists them at his side. Please, he's saying, please, you need to give me time. We can— we only need—
"You can't just quit," he manages, finally.
Except she can. She must. Everything he's saying is tear-stained, desperate, and for a heart-rending moment she forgets that it's Harvey stood in front of her. Forgets the facts of his lawyer-sharp wit, his strength, his fortitude. He looks like a scared little kid, and Donna lets her eyes flick to his mom's painting on the wall before she throws this final punch. Oh, how he hates the steel in her gaze.
"I'm not quitting." She takes a breath, trying her hardest to ignore the way he isn't breathing. "I'm going to work for Louis."
"Donna," he murmurs, swaying where he stands, unable to properly move. Like she's some wild animal, like he's worried that she'll make a run for it if he gets too close. "Donna, please."
Harvey doesn't beg. He doesn't do any of this. He's tearing the heart out from behind his ribs, holding it out to her, offering her this part of him which she knows he hasn't ever offered to anyone else. Desperate isn't even the word for it. He's terrified.
And it isn't enough.
"I love you, Harvey."
Donna turns, walks, holds a hand to her mouth to stifle her sobs once she's far enough away from him.
And then she leaves. And he doesn't stop her. And it's the worst thing she'll ever do.
Donna wakes in darkness. It's pitch black in the room except for the glow of her alarm clock, lit green with the 3:07am which blares from its display. Sleep-hazed, she lifts a hand to her neck, feeling for the pulse there — was it a nightmare that woke her? A stress dream? — but it thuds back at her, unhurried, and she cannot for the life of her figure out why she's awake so randomly until she finally registers the pounding at her front door.
She says pounding. It's more just a harsh knock, three or four in a row every couple of seconds, uneven enough to be worrisome even through the early-morning fuzz of exhaustion. Her mind clears a little when she sits up, blinking the sleep from behind her eyes: who the fuck is stupid enough to be startling her awake at three in the morning?
A name comes to mind, because of course it does, but she remembers the look on his face when she walked away from him two nights ago and — it can't be him. It wouldn't be.
But she just — she can't think of a single other person who this could be. Louis would wait until the morning. Rachel would call. Harvey is the only friend (friend?) she's ever had who would so brazenly rock up at her house like this.
She stands, clocking just a moment too late how the room sways a little once she's actually up. The nights are somehow even worse than the days, even worse than watching the man she loves go to every length to avoid her in the office, and Donna tries not to think about the bottle of Claret which she polished off on her own just a couple of hours ago. In another life she would've called him. In this life, it's three in the morning and she's still a little wine drunk and a person who is very possibly Harvey Specter is waiting at her front door.
She moves through the apartment slowly, drawing her dressing gown tight around herself (she's wearing pyjamas, but they're sheer, and short, and if it is Harvey then by no means do they need that added complication) and trying very deliberately not to think about exactly what he could be doing here.
About exactly how she'll respond if he's— if he wants—
(her)
—company. It's difficult. All of it, this entire mess, the conflict waging in her chest between want and fear, so complicated that for a minute she stops being able to tell the difference at all.
She needs him and it isn't enough. He loves her and it isn't enough. How could they possibly have fucked this up so badly?
And then she's standing in her own entry hall and it's too late anyway. She loves him like it's a religion, utterly devout, and Donna is stricken all at once with the understanding that if she opens this door and he just strides forwards and takes what he wants — she's going to let him. He will ruin her and she will watch it happen. If he wants to tear her apart, piece by sun-soaked piece, then so be it. Because everything comes back to this, and it always has, and maybe it always will between them: the devastation. The wreckage. The sacrifice.
It's all they know.
So she waits until he knocks again, waits until she hears the desperate slide of his palm against the wood. And then she takes a breath, and grasps the handle with shaking fingers, and pulls—
Donna nearly has a fucking heart attack.
She takes stock of exactly three things, all in horrifying succession: he's looking at her like she's redemption. He's slumped, trembling, against her doorframe.
He's covered in blood.
Chapter 2 coming soon!