A/N: This fic was inspired by the following tweet: /fasc1nate/status/1742123795077304531?s=20
The idea was for this to be an alternate version of the same context of my fic "Will" ( /s/13726149/1/Will); I explain the context better on that one, I wasn't in the mood to do it again here, haha, especially since this is meant just as a bit of fun. In any case, if you haven't read that one, here is the basic background premise: during Mike's trial, Harvey is unsure of whether he's going to turn himself in or if Gibbs is going to find something on him and get him arrested too, so Louis, as his lawyer, convinces him to take precautions and he decides to write up a will. Both fics start from that premise but go in very different directions.
As I said, this one is pretty silly and unserious and not at all something I think Harvey would actually do but I hope you still like it :)
Donna can't remember a time when the atmosphere around the office was more tense than it is these days, not even during the Coastal Motors memo fiasco. Mike's trial is looming close and everyone has been working day and night on his case - and those who aren't are gossiping around the office speculating about his innocence, which just makes everything worse.
Lord knows Harvey is practically on the verge of a breakdown. Both of them have been completely absorbed by the case, pulling out all the stops to make sure Mike gets the best chance he possibly can, but she's never seen Harvey this riled up before, and about half her job has become talking him off the ledge of whatever harebrained idea he's come up with.
He's out of the office just now, talking to Vanessa about trying to get something on Gibbs, and she seizes the opportunity to go in there and bring a bit of order to the mess currently occupying his desk. There's a million papers on here, subpoenas, police reports, printed out e-mails and documents from other cases, correspondence, it's a mess, and, though Harvey will likely be ticked off at first by her rearranging it, he'll thank her five minutes later once he can actually find the things he needs.
She starts by going through everything and sorting them into categories - Mike's case, other urgent matters, messages he needs to reply to, one by one she goes through each scrap of paper and manila folder on his desk, already feeling a breath of relief once she starts seeing the glass underneath,
She picks up a document buried under three other folders and turns it towards herself to read.
New York Last Will and Testament
Huh, that's weird, she doesn't remember Harvey dealing with any wills recently. She keeps on reading.
I, Harvey Reginald Specter-
Her heart jumps and her breath hitches and she stops reading immediately, dropping the papers on his desk as if they just bit her.
What the fuck is this.
She eyes the document cautiously and stands very still, treating it as she would a poisonous animal ready to attack.
From a distance, she re-reads the header, making sure she got it right. It really is a will, in Harvey's name. Rationally, she knows many people get their wills written down before they're under any concrete risk of dying - you never know what could happen, after all. But Harvey's not that kind of person, and even if he were she can't think of any reason why that would be on his desk right now - if it's been done for a while, why bring it out? If it hasn't, why concern himself with that now?
The document and her line of thought send a chill down her spine.
The mere thought that Harvey could be considering the possibility of his own death, for whatever reason, makes her nauseous and weak. She can't even begin to imagine that scenario, can't begin to imagine a life without him there - never mind that they only recently came back from a huge rift that almost tore them apart for good. Even when she was mad at him, even in the moments she was certain she never wanted to see him again, in her mind he was always there, looming in the background, ready to be let in again as soon as she said the word.
The thought of him not being anywhere anymore is too much to bear.
Taking a steadying breath, she reaches out and takes the document again, picking it up slowly, anxiously. She forces herself to read through it - whatever this is, she should be aware of it, just in case.
It is Harvey's will, there's no doubt about that, and it's more practical than anything - some assets to Marcus, a thing or two to Jessica, some things directly to his niece and nephew. She still doesn't really know what prompted him to do this, and she's wondering how this could be related to Mike's trial when her own name on the page makes her breath hitch.
Dread pools in her stomach and she grips the page tighter. Harvey left her something in his will. Okay.
She keeps on reading, one word at a time at an almost childish pace.
His condo. A sizable amount of the money in his bank account. Her favorite record of his father's. And, at the bottom of the section reserved for her, a note:
If things had been different you would have been my wife, and this would have been yours anyway.
Her heart stops. She thinks she misread it. She's sure she misread it, but she reads it again and it still says the same thing.
If things had been different you would have been my wife, and this would have been yours anyway.
She feels like she's been drugged, or like she's having a heart attack, or like she's fallen through the looking glass or something, because there's no fucking way he really wrote this on the page.
And what the fuck does that mean, anyway?! 'If things had been different'? What things? And what the fuck is Harvey talking about saying wife?! She's never even seen him be in a relationship for more than a few months.
Her knees are shaking and she's on the verge of hyperventilating and she leans against his desk to make sure she doesn't fall to the floor.
Harvey wrote a will. She's holding it in her hand. He left her things. And he finished it off saying that if things had been different, she would have been his wife. What the fuck.
What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck.
She feels like the words aren't even connecting properly in her brain, like she's completely lost the plot or like this is some elaborate prank about to be revealed to her any second now.
As if on cue, Harvey walks in, striding briskly, checking his phone. He barely notices her, certainly doesn't acknowledge her presence, and she gapes at him like a fish until he's about to sit down. Then she snaps into action.
"What the hell is this?!" she brandishes the paper in his direction.
He looks up, checking what she means, squints to reads its contents. Then he freezes, his nostrils flaring a little at being caught, and she can see the second his brain takes to think of a way out, to come up with an escape plan.
Then he frowns. "Did you go through my stuff?!"
His calculated confusion ticks her off and she grits her teeth, the anger steadying her a bit. "Don't even think about playing dumb."
To his benefit, Harvey immediately drops the act, huffing and rolling his eyes like a freaking child instead. "No need for all that drama. It's just a precaution, Donna, it was Louis's recommendation."
She frowns, completely lost and getting more frustrated by it by the minute. "Precaution against what?"
He cocks his head condescendingly and she's just about ready to jump over his desk and strangle him. "You know what. We don't know what's gonna happen with Gibbs and Mike and everything, and if it all goes to shit, I'd rather have my affairs in order."
Well, it is true that they don't know what's going to happen, but the mere suggestion that this will could ever be necessary sounds absurd. "You mean if you get shanked in prison," she deadpans, taunting him.
He rolls his eyes again, almost theatrical from how exaggerated the motion is. "Jesus, Donna," he complains, clearly aggravated by her exasperation, and gets up to pour himself a drink, but then he purses his lips and deliberately doesn't look at her, "But, yeah, in the absolute worst case scenario."
Her stomach drops again. She already knew that was the only reason for this but it's still a cold shower to hear him admit it out loud - she was hoping he'd tell her that she was imagining things, reading too much into this, that there was another perfectly reasonable explanation. "You really think it's gonna come to that?!" she practically squeaks, panic lacing her tone.
Harvey instantly looks at her as if she's being unreasonable. "Of course not, most likely nothing will happen and I'll rip this thing up and throw it away next week," he gestures to the paper dismissively.
Donna is undeterred, though. She shakes her head indignantly, crossing her arms, "I can't believe you didn't think to tell me you think you might get killed in prison!"
"That's because I don't think that," he tips his head again, "And, by the way, this is exactly why I didn't want to tell you about it, because I knew you'd get spooked!"
She scoffs, incredulous, "Well, I am fucking spooked, Harvey! This is insane!" Her arms shoot out in a burst of energy, almost as if pleading for him to reason with her.
He sighs and shakes his head before making his way back to his chair. "Look, just- Forget about it, okay? It's not important for now anyway."
His dismissive tone grates on her, and she slides the document towards him and places her finger squarely on her name on the page. "Am I supposed to forget about this too?"
He looks down at what she's pointing at and his face instantly falls. He exhales heavily, closing his eyes, and she swears to God she has never met anyone more averse to difficult conversations than him, which is ironic considering he's a fucking lawyer.
"Donna...," he says in his typical 'Let it go' tone, but letting it go is the last thing she's willing to do.
"Were you really gonna wait till after you were dead to tell me this?" she asks indignantly, not even able to decide what in this whole mess she is most angry about.
Harvey instantly gets defensive, frowning pettily up to her. "Well, I didn't think you'd want to know."
She lets out a puff of humorless laughter. "Oh, really? And why exactly is that?"
He splutters, clearly out of his depth. "Just- You have your fucking rule and-"
"Don't you dare, Harvey," she says menacingly, warning him very clearly that one more step in that direction will lead him into an argument he most certainly doesn't want to have, least of all right now.
He huffs, looks up at her almost pleadingly, desperate for her to just let it go. She doesn't.
"Look, I just- Writing your own will has a way of making you really fucking depressed, okay?" he finally tries, sounding miserable and panicked, "I thought I would never have the opportunity to tell you that out loud and it just came out. It doesn't have to mean anything."
It's so fucking predictable that he would try to go there again and she decides to cut him off before he can. "Jesus Christ, shut up, Harvey," she shuts her eyes tight and pinches the bridge of her nose with her index fingers. Her head is spinning a bit but through the fog she can understand what he's actually saying, whether he means to or not: it doesn't have to mean anything, but it can. It does. He hasn't denied it.
Regardless of his inadequacy and ineptness at feelings and relationships in general, regardless of the fact that he didn't even try to tell her this in person or that he refused to answer how he loved her, this was still a confession of his feelings, of the fact that, somehow, even if he never worked up the courage to tell her, he wanted to share a life with her. That he still wants to, considering he must have written this pretty recently. That he feels that way strongly enough that he decided to officialize it in his will, sharing his own belongings with her like a man does with his wife.
Donna huffs in exasperation and affection. "You idiot, idiot man," she complains, trying to make sense of everything he said - and everything he wrote.
It is just like Harvey to do something stupid and grand and earth-shattering like this while being completely and utterly unable to simply communicate his feelings like a functioning adult. It's maddening that she's been left to deal with this kind of thing for twelve years, twelve long years of babysitting him and spoon-feeding him his own emotions even when they are about her, and now this? This is just beyond anything she ever imagined going through and this- this fucking idiot can't even articulate his own wishes properly.
It's completely infuriating, and she can't even believe she's as in love with him as she is.
With her eyes still closed and fingers moving to press into her temple, she mutters, "I swear to God, Harvey, if I'd had to find out you wanted to marry me from your fucking will, I would have brought you back to life and killed you again myself."
"Donna, can we please just let it go," Harvey begs, sounding clearly panicked and almost pitiful, "I'll draft up a new one and we can pretend this never happened-"
"I said, shut up!" she bursts, her eyes flying open and hands framing her head in exasperation. She can't believe she has to do everything herself but she'll be damned if she lets him ruin this for both of them. "Shut up and kiss me, you freaking idiot!"
Harvey freezes, mouth agape and eyes wide, and it's almost comical, especially in this huge mess of a situation.
She refuses to be deterred from his reaction. "What, you're only willing to admit you wanna be with me when you're in your deathbed?" she sasses, tone the equivalent to a slap upside the head.
Finally, blessedly, the moron in front of her seems to catch up, and he practically stumbles out of his chair and crosses the space between them, almost crashing into her as he frames her face and kisses her. The kiss is the perfect vessel for all the nervous energy that was coursing through her veins, and she pours it all out, pulling him into her and deepening the kiss. It is surreal to be kissing him again after all these years, and even more because of everything that happened between them just a few months ago, but after the freaking will and him basically admitting, one way or another, that he wants to be with her forever, this kiss almost seems like the most normal thing in the world.
They part once they run out of breath, pulling back with twin pants and twin stupid grins on their faces and all she can think is Finally.
He's smiling at her with that boyish smile of his and she can't wait to revel in that every day for the rest of her life, but first she needs to rib him some more, so she purses her lips and stabs a finger at his chest. "This was really fucked up of you," she chastises in a mockingly stern tone.
It's too late, though, because Harvey is already fully in playful mode. "Come on, it was a little bit funny," he smirks, his arms tightening around her waist and pulling her impossibly closer.
"No, it wasn't funny," she swats at his chest.
His grins, but then his face softens. "For the record, I really didn't mean for you to find out this way," he says tenderly, sheepishly, and she suspects the truth is actually that he didn't mean for her to find out at all, but that doesn't feel as important now that they've crossed the final line between them anyway.
"For the record, do not think that gets you out of proposing to me properly when the time comes," she fires back at him, using humor to lighten up some of the soberness of his previous statement.
He lets her, lips curling into a smirk again. "Hm, talking about marriage already?" he teases with a glint in his eyes.
"You were the one who was calling me wife before we even had a conversation," she quirks a brow, knowing she's in the lead here.
He shakes his head, "You're never gonna let me live this down, are you?"
"Not anytime soon, no," she shakes her head as well, smiling winningly, and Harvey grins, pulling her into a kiss again.
