I've had this opening scene vividly play in my head for so long, however it never had any further context, so I have finally made myself create a story to explain how they got there and where they went after. It is likely entirely filled with plot holes and inconsistencies but hey the actual suits writers themselves were guilty of this at times. It's been a long time since I've managed to write these characters so this fic is really nothing more than just an exercise at blowing out the cobwebs and trying to find them and my writing again because I have really missed it.
Illicit Affairs
"You can't even look at me can you?"
Slowly he turns his head, dragging his eyes unwillingly up to meet hers. Her stomach churns with what she sees there, the confirmation of all her suspicions emanating from his pupils. He raises an eyebrow slightly, as if trying to prove a point, as if to say 'you're wrong, I can'.
"Not without disgust," she amends her assertion.
"I am disgusted," he mumbles, his voice weak, broken, no longer his own, and she feels sick, nausea spreading like a wave through her body, because even though she can see it, even though she knew it in her heart, his confirmation still makes her head spin.
"With me," Harvey adds with a growl. "I mean with me. I didn't want to be her. Ever." The last word is coarse, dragged from the depths of his wounded childhood heart.
"Not just with yourself," she continues to persist, because she needs him to say it. She needs him to shatter her illusions that last night was not in fact the beginning of them, and instead face the harsh reality that rather it was, finally, the bitter end.
"No," he disagrees, but the word lacks any level of sincerity.
"Maybe not, but it's changed us now hasn't it. I've changed to you."
Harvey loses his battle to maintain eye contact, to keep himself restrained. "You were meant to save me from this," he bursts out, finally releasing the thoughts he's clearly had bottled up inside him since waking. "You were supposed to be better than me."
"You knew what we were doing Harvey, we both made a choice last night. I asked you if you were sure."
"I know," he says through gritted teeth. "But you were meant to be better than me," he repeats again. "Stronger."
"I'm not some fucking angel Harvey," she cries, her heartbreak morphing into anger at his apparent belief that in the cold light of day he could pin the blame for this solely on her. "You've always put me too high on a pedestal."
"You put yourself on one! Put yourself just out of reach, where I could look but never touch, while you pranced around like temptation every day."
"Temptation? You could have had me anytime you wanted, we both knew it." The truth she kept buried slides out into the open as anger slices through her.
"Your rule.." he starts to argue but she cuts him off before he can continue.
"Fuck my rule. You've never followed one you didn't want to a day in your life. Don't give me that excuse. I've been yours Harvey, since day one, you just were just always too scared to claim me. You wanted all of me, but none of me at the same time, but just so long as no one else had me." A decade's worth of repressed feelings pour out of her.
"Well now you've had me Harvey, it's not my fault you waited until you were married to try and claim me. My willpower might have been weak, but you're the one wearing a ring."
She stares at him, the weight of all that was said and still unsaid hanging heavy in the room, the pressure building and morphing, anger mixed with hurt, guilt mixed with shame, desire slipping into the free spaces as much as they both try to ignore it and wish it wasn't there.
The longer they stare the more she realises things are only going one of two ways, either she walks out of this room immediately or they'll end up back in that bed, and she won't let him lay the blame on her for being too weak to walk away a second time.
"This thing. Whatever it is. It's over."
"Good."
"Good."
She walks out and doesn't look back, leaving the shattered remains of her heart on the hotel floor.
Two Years Earlier
"You're making a mistake."
She finds him outside, leaning against the cold brick wall of the bar. She'd seen him make his escape, slink out the back door when he thought no one was looking.
He looks at her, eyebrow raised, some mix of curiosity and agitation flickering in his eyes.
"Leaving? Or marrying her?"
She shrugs, because she thinks the answer should be obvious, but of course he wants her to spell it out for him. She knows she's been unnaturally silent in the wake of the spiralling mess that was Harvey Specter's life playing out before her, but she honestly hasn't known what to say. For the first time, he's left her speechless.
She thinks maybe she can understand London, in a fresh start and all that kind of thing way, a chance of beginning again, of salvaging himself professionally. He turned his own name to mud in this town and Jessica had made sure everyone knew it. Coming back from that would be no easy feat.
So yes he lost his mentor, his friend, his future. He backed the wrong horse, committed the ultimate betrayal of the person he owed everything to, and he lost horribly and entirely and now there's nothing left for him at Pearson. But still, the Harvey she thought she knew wouldn't have let that stop him. She's not used to seeing him run from a fight and that's how she knows that the guilt of what he did to Jessica, his failed attempts to manoeuvre her out of her job and her firm, must be eating him alive.
As for Scottie, as for the ring on his finger, she's got no fucking idea how that came about. There's always been something there between them of course, history, attraction, competition, she just never thought it would end in marriage.
The day he told her they'd gone to the courthouse and gotten married, that he was moving to London with her to work for Darby's firm, she had smiled through her shock, congratulated him without an ounce of sincerity and then immediately fled his office and threw up in the bathroom.
He hadn't asked her for advice, hadn't come to her looking for a sounding board. He'd just imploded himself straight into a brand new life. One that didn't include her. She might have once told him she'd follow him to the ends of the earth, but they both knew there was a continental limit to that claim.
She had swallowed down the chaos of emotions his news created, too many thoughts to even begin to unpack what they meant, and had instead helped him with the logistics, organised the moving company and the visa's and the plane tickets and even the small farewell/congratulations-you-just-got-spontaneously-married celebration they were at this evening.
She'd kept silent, because she was afraid of just what she might say if she opened her mouth.
Until she saw him walk past her looking terrified and overwhelmed and like he wanted to flee his own body. So she went after him, and told him the truth for the first time in weeks.
"Well it's all a done deal now. It's a bit late for you to suddenly find your opinions again Donna after being so silent." While the words are harsh and his face shows irritation, his tone makes him sound like a lost little boy.
"I've just never known you to run away from a fight."
He bristles at her words. "Don't you get it. There is no fight, it's over, Jessica won," he shouts, and she wonders just who he's trying to convince more, her or himself. "There is nothing left here for me anymore."
His final claim makes her flinch, a level of confirmation that to Harvey their relationship only ever existed in the realm of work. The end of that part of his life was obviously the end of her being in his.
"You and I both know that's not true."
"Jessica will never forgive me! My downfall has been the best thing that ever happened as far as Louis is concerned. Hell, even Mike is on her side even if he won't admit it."
"Well I wasn't Harvey. I was on your team, just like always, but clearly that means nothing to you."
"I guess I know which choice you think was a mistake now."
"I didn't say that."
"Then what are you saying Donna, because you've had plenty of time to say it and haven't."
"I just want you to be happy Harvey. But it's not my place to decide what that is for you."
"Seems like that's what you're trying to do now."
"I'm not. I just couldn't let you go without saying something." She shrugs, not even fully aware herself as to why she had felt compelled to at first stay silent and then, at the last minute, say something about what she is certain are the two biggest mistakes Harvey has ever made in his life.
"Why?" His anger falters and he's got that scared lost boy look on his face again and it breaks her.
"Because I don't want you to go."
Tension swirls around them in the cool night air, threatening to unveil the bigger truth hidden under her words. Just how much she doesn't want him to leave, how much she aches knowing he's about to walk out of her life, how much it destroys her that he married Scottie. How the ring on his finger obliterated that maybe one day possibility she always deep down thought they had.
She was losing him, and it hurt, like her heart was being carved out of her chest, and she couldn't ignore it anymore, couldn't pretend it wasn't happening.
"Donna." His voice is soft, broken, pain reflecting back at her in his eyes as he stares at her, the world around them fading away, until it was just them, trapped in this moment with all the things they should admit, but couldn't.
It felt like gravity was pulling them together, the space between them seeming to disappear even though she's positive neither of them are moving, and yet he's right there, just a breath away from her, so close that if she just tilted her head she could…
But then Harvey's hand flexes against his thigh, and the light catches the gold of his ring, flashing across her vision and everything shatters again. She wasn't losing him, she'd already lost him. He didn't belong to her anymore.
"Goodbye Harvey, I hope I'm wrong." Unable to stop herself she leans in, her lips grazing over his cheek and his sharp intake of breath will ring in her ears for days afterwards.
Then she turns and walks away, not knowing it would be the last time she'd speak to him for almost two years.
Twelve Hours Earlier
He's standing in the old familiar lobby, white marble tiles stretching out before him, still unsure why he's even there, doesn't know what exactly compelled him to walk inside the building as he passed it, when she walks out the elevator, head down absorbed in reading something on her phone and collides with him.
The scent of her perfume, still the same one he remembers, swirls around him, sweet and bursting with memories and all he can think is this is why he walked in here.
"Donna?"
"Harvey?" She reels back, staring up at him in surprise, eyes wide, mouth gaping and even shocked she still looks just as beautiful as ever. "Wow, what's it been, nearly two years?"
"Yeah, I guess that sounds about right." It seems preposterous to him that it's been that long, that he's allowed that much time to pass without her in his life.
A beat of awkward silence fills the space between them and then she tilts her head towards the elevator. "You going up?" she asks.
He shrugs, unsure how to explain why he was there. "I was just passing by, I hadn't really decided." Besides, he doubts he'd receive much of a welcoming party.
"She's not in the office today," Donna says softly, giving him a look and even after all this time she still reads him like a book. He finds it oddly comforting.
"Are you back in town for business?" she asks hesitantly.
"Yeah, just for a few meetings, heading back to London tomorrow."
She nods and once again silence hangs in the void. Her fingers twitch nervously, adjusting her handbag on her shoulder and he can tell she's thinking about putting an end to their strained conversation and this unexpected reunion and making an escape. He can't say he blames her after the way their last conversation went and the radio silence that had existed since.
"Do you want to have dinner?" He suddenly asks in a rush, jumping at the first idea he has that would stop her leaving, because he just isn't ready to have her walk out his life again and he can't help but feel like it was all too serendipitous for them to have crossed paths unexpectedly, only for them to part after nothing more than a brief moment of forced conversation.
"Dinner?"
He shrugs. "It would be nice to catch up."
She pauses and he thinks she's trying to find a way to let him down gently but then she smiles softly and nods. "That would be nice Harvey."
They go to the restaurant at his hotel since it's just around the corner and they are unnaturally formal with each other at first as they settle into their table and order. At first the conversation remains laboured, filled with empty silence and single worded answers and he starts to think dinner might have actually been a mistake, because having Donna sit across from him feeling like a stranger is almost worse than having her left only in his memories.
But then slowly, with time, the stiff atmosphere begins to defrost, and by the time the main course arrives it feels like they have shifted back into their familiar, easy rapport.
He learns that she works for Louis now, him having shuffled Norma off with a hefty retirement cheque the second he knew Donna was available to him. He certainly can't blame the man, Donna was one hell of an upgrade. She soon has him chuckling as she regales him with tales of being on Team Litt.
She talks about Mike and Rachel, their relationship still going strong, the pair sounding almost sickeningly in love and happy. He does talk with Mike occasionally, but the calls have become further and further apart as time went on. It's hard for him listening to Mike living the life that deep down he sometimes found himself wishing he still had. It was easier to adapt to his new one without the memories of everything he left behind.
The biggest of which now sits across from him, and he has no idea how he's meant to just walk away from her again after tonight.
She still can't believe she's sitting having dinner with Harvey. It's something she never really expected to find herself doing ever again, especially not on a random Wednesday night with no warning. She had put him out of her mind the day he boarded his flight to London and she has been steadfastly focused on moving on with life ever since then.
But even though she thinks it might have been safer, healthier even, to turn down his invitation to dinner she just couldn't. Five minutes in his presence and she could already feel him creeping back into her bones and her soul.
The ring still sits on his finger and that's all the explanation she needs on that front. So she doesn't mention Scottie and neither does Harvey. It seems an intentional choice on his behalf, as though the word wife no longer existed in his vocabulary. In fact provides very little insight into London life, other than a noncommittal response that work was busy and challenging and a long lament about learning to drive on the other side of the road. But otherwise he seems to soon redirect the conversation back to other topics.
She tries not to question that any deeper, look for further meaning, happy to let the conversation flow where he takes it. So they don't talk about his life now, and they don't discuss the words they last spoke and why they haven't in the two years that have since past, but she doesn't care. Instead she just lets herself enjoy the feeling of being with him once again.
Until a clumsy waitress trips on the leg of a chair and dumps a whole tray of brightly coloured cocktails on top of her.
She yelps loudly at the shock of her drenching, icy cold liquid seeping through the thin fabric of her shirt and glassware crashing to the floor. The waitress begins to apologise profusely, already in tears, and the manager soon joins them, handing her a small towel that does little to dry her off. She's not looking to make a fuss, because the waitress seems utterly distraught, reassuring them she's okay, none of the broken glass got her and she just desperately needs to dry off and she'll be fine. Even as she grits her teeth at the knowledge her new silk blouse was probably ruined forever.
"Well, that was a memorable end to the evening," she quips at Harvey, a shiver spreading through her body from the chill of her soaked shirt. "I guess I should go home and deal with this mess."
"Do you want to come up to my room, you can dry off properly, even borrow a shirt if you want? It's freezing outside, you can't go out like that," Harvey suggests, looking concerned.
It is an entirely innocent invitation, after an entirely innocent dinner, so she doesn't know why her heart starts thumping wildly in her chest.
At first she declines, because surely it's not a wise choice, but Harvey continues to insist, and eventually she agrees, because she's so cold and wet, and her skin is sticky from the syrups in the cocktails and the last thing she feels like doing is going out into the New York winter like this.
But still the air seems to pulse around them as they take the elevator up to his room, as he fumbles for his key, looking nervous for no reason at all, unlocking the door and awkwardly inviting her in. She keeps repeating to herself that this is innocent, a just pair of old friends fixing an unexpected situation, and absolutely nothing more.
Harvey rifles through his luggage and eventually hands her a white button up shirt. "Sorry this is all I've got. Just remembered I spilled coffee on my t-shirt this morning."
"This is fine. Thank you."
Their fingers brush as he hands her the shirt, the first real touch they've shared, apart from their collision in the office lobby, and it feels like electricity flaming along her skin and they both pull their hands back quickly. It's a relief to be able to close the bathroom door and have a minute alone to try and calm the sudden rampant throbbing of her body. She peels off her ruined shirt and does her best to clean the sticky cocktail residue off her skin. Her bra is damp as well but there's no way she's walking out of this room not wearing one so she does her best to dry it off.
Her heartbeat ratchets up yet another level as she shrugs Harvey's shirt over her shoulders. It smells like him, inviting and familiar, and she notes he still wears the same cologne. Something tugs in her chest when she spots his embroidered initials on the sleeve.
She buttons the shirt, then stares at herself in the mirror, forcing in several deep breaths to regain control, not understanding why her body was suddenly acting like it was almost in fight or flight mode.
He's right there outside the door when she opens it, waiting for her, leaning against the wall.
"Feeling better?" He asks, his voice soft, low.
"Much. Thank you for the shirt."
"It looks good on you." The compliment takes her by surprise, a slight blush tingling on her cheeks and it's the first thing she can't fully brush away as innocent.
"Still doing your initials I see." She holds up her wrist.
"Some things haven't changed," he says quietly, his eyes boring into her as he speaks and she knows he means it deeper than a simple fashion detail.
The atmosphere changes as he keeps staring at her and she feels like she's falling backwards in time, to two years ago when he stood looking at her like that outside the bar.
"Why did you never call me?" She asks, finally broaching the topic that has been eating at her all this time. She never reached out to him either, so there's definitely a level of hypocrisy in her question, but still, she needs to know.
"Because the last thing you said to me was that I was making a mistake." He lets out a long slow sigh. "And I was afraid you were right."
"Was I?"
They both know she's not talking about his London move, and she also knows she really shouldn't be asking such a question while they're standing in a dimly lit hotel room, while she's wearing his shirt, while he's looking at her like that.
But she's almost afraid to breathe, to blink, to do anything that might make him not answer. She knows she has no right to even ask.
But she has to know.
"Was I?"
He can't answer her question, because he doesn't know the answer. He wants to say yes but that feels like betrayal, to himself, to his career, to his wife, to the entire life he's worked so hard to build. But no doesn't find its way to his lips either.
Instead the world recedes as he looks at her, until he can no longer see the hotel room around them, the view from the window, the ugly painting on the wall. Until it's just her face, the face that has haunted his dreams for the past two years. Just her face, and in particular her lips, soft, pink, inviting.
He can't think of anything else, because at that moment nothing else in the world exists. It's just her and him and this chasm of unknown, because no matter what happens next he knows that everything is changing right now, the cogs turning and twisting with the hands of fate all night.
Running into her has been like coming up for air, for the first time in he doesn't know how long he feels like he's breathing properly again. He's missed her, ferociously, in a way he is only just realising, because he's been burying any thought he had of her deep in the pit of his stomach. He didn't call her because after that night outside the bar he was afraid of where that one phone call would eventually lead them.
And still, that's exactly where they've wound up.
He doesn't lean in, and she doesn't either, but somehow their lips touch, the faintest of pressure, the briefest flash of heat. She moans, softly, sweetly, and it's the most intoxicating sound he's ever heard and that's what destroys any last remaining drop of restraint, what makes his willpower and his morals and his view on right and wrong evaporate into thin air. Because the only thing he wants in life, the only thing he can think of, is listening to her make that sound again and again.
And so he slides his hand over her cheek, fuses his lips with hers, and kisses her again, properly. Colour and sound explode around him, and he can't even begin to pretend that he knows this isn't right, but he also can't stop.
"Harvey, are you sure?" She gasps as he moves from her lips to her neck, soft and sweet, feeling her body shiver as he runs his tongue along her collarbone.
He's sure of nothing. Except in this moment it would take a fucking sledgehammer to stop him. He's sure of nothing, except that he might die if he lets her walk out of this hotel room without seeing this through.
"Yes," he growls, sealing their fate.
He takes off the ring. He thinks somehow what he's doing is less awful if the symbol of his commitment isn't still wrapped around his finger. The click of it hitting the marble bedside table is like the clicking of a lock. He's not going back now.
So he switches off his brain, lets himself be enticed by her, absorbed by her, loses himself in her smell and touch and sensation and the way he feels in this moment, whole and full and alive in a way he hasn't felt in two years. He takes the guilt and the shame over what he's doing and he locks it deep, deep away, not wanting it to taint this moment.
He wants to take in everything, every heartbeat and breath, every inch of her flesh, every quiver of her body.
His fingers shake as he undoes the buttons of her, his, shirt and slides it over her shoulders letting it drop to the floor. He thinks seeing her wearing his clothes might have been the final nail in the coffin of his restraint that started decaying the second he saw her in the lobby.
Donna reciprocates, her delicate hands just as shaky on his buttons and then his shirt is gone as well and her palms press to his skin like a brand, her lips ghosting a kiss over his heart, and he feels it falter.
The rest of their clothes soon join the puddle on the floor and she trembles as he lays her down on the bed, spread naked before him, soft and delicate and his, although not really, and he's hers, although not really.
He covers her with his body, spreading warmth over her bare skin with his lips and his palms, memorising every curve and line and hollow, until she's panting, breathless, whimpering with need. Until neither of them can wait another second.
He watches as he sinks inside her, as he demolishes the final line, the final barrier between right and wrong. If he's destroying everything then he wants to remember just exactly what it is he's doing it for.
Her fingertips dig into his shoulder blades as he slides deeper, and she sighs his name breathlessly, and it sends a shiver along his spine. He drags his eyes up over her body, to her perfect, beautiful face, rippling with pleasure, eyes closed, beauty like he's never seen.
Going to hell he thinks feels an awful lot like heaven at the moment.
And so he loses himself in her and them and this illicit moment that he thinks might have been inevitable all along, even if his willpower had been stronger.
And he can't stop.
They go again and again, satisfying themselves over and over because he didn't break his cardinal rule for once. He did shatter the life he's built for just once.
And he doesn't think, he just feels, until their lips are bruised and their lungs are aching, until all the muscles in their body feel like jelly and their skin sings with the fingerprints of their touch.
He doesn't think, until hours later when they finally stop, until stillness settles around them and suddenly reality crashes back in, hard and fast and violent, with the force of a nuclear bomb.
"Oh god." He thinks he only mouths the words but she hears them or maybe just senses them
"Harvey, it's going to be okay," she whispers, her hand steady on his chest,
But it's not okay, the reality of what he's done sinking cold and stark into his bones as sleep overcomes him, his arms still wrapped around her, clutching her to him like she's a life raft that might just save him from the fallout that's to come.
Except in the bitter light of morning guilt and shame overrides everything, and they lob grenades made of all the words they've never said at each other, eviscerating what they might have otherwise started that night.
Until she walks out of his life yet again, for the second time.
She doesn't tell anyone about what happened. Not even Rachel.
She's embarrassed, ashamed to be the other woman, to have lowered her own standards, to have in some ways proven every piece of gossip and innuendo from the past decade right.
The hurt lingers for a long time. But she embraces it, deserves it. Finds it freeing in a way. Because for the first time in ten years she truly believes she's free of Harvey Specter. What was, what could have been, what had been, it's all over now. Properly. Actually. Finally. She doesn't have to fool herself or convince herself anymore that it's true. The tight ache of her heart is all the evidence she needs.
She doesn't hear from Harvey, not that she expected to. As far as she knows he went back to London that day and never looked back.
The months pass and the feelings slowly diminish, evolve. She moves through the stages of grief and after eight months she's pretty sure she's at the point of acceptance.
Until Mike gets arrested and two days later she walks into the office to find Harvey standing outside Jessica's office.
"You're back?" She asks, the words spilling out before she'd even made a decision whether to speak or turn around and leave.
"We are." His word choice is clearly intentional, and her eyes dip involuntarily to his fingers, to the gold band still firmly in place on his left hand. Her memory flashes with the sight of it discarded on the bedside table. She liked it better there.
Silence overflowing with too many thoughts and memories and unsaid words envelopes them, trapping her on the spot.
"For Mike," Harvey adds eventually.
"I assumed."
More silence follows, as they stand awkward and stiff, neither of them capable of meeting each other's eyes.
"I should go, Mike's waiting." Harvey finally says.
She just nods, too shell shocked by his sudden reappearance in her life yet again to form any more words.
He walks away, leaving her still rooted to the spot. They were done and buried, scorched earth all that lay between them. So why was her heart beating a hundred miles an hour, her pulse throbbing, her memory ringing with the feel of him moving inside her.
Fuck Harvey Specter and the power he has over her. So much for acceptance.
She finally makes her way to her desk, only for Jessica to find her a few minutes later.
"Good you're in, I need you to cancel whatever work you have on. I assume you know Harvey is back temporarily, I need you to work with him and Scottie on Mike's case."
"Scottie?" She hadn't been expecting her to be actively involved in the case.
"Well Harvey was stupid enough to tell her the truth so we might as well make use of her expertise."
"Jessica, I don't think that's a good idea."
Her eyes turn steely. "I don't know what happened between you and Harvey before he left or since. Frankly I don't care. But I'll tell you what I told him. This is your goddamn mess and you're gonna help clean it up."
"My mess?"
"Yes Donna. Because you knew what he was doing from day one and you didn't stop it. So yes, it's your mess too. And I'm not bringing yet another person in on this disaster of Harvey's making. The three of you know the truth, so you need to get over whatever it is and get to work."
She's rarely seen Jessica so angry, or dismissive of her. She knows how serious Mike being arrested is, how far reaching the consequences could be. Of course she's willing to do anything to save Mike and the future of the firm. But she's pretty sure working with the man she had an affair with and his wife isn't going to have any positive outcomes. Not that she can tell Jessica the real reason.
"What about Louis?" She asks, her final hope at salvation because she can't imagine he'll take her leaving him to go work with Harvey again very well, even temporarily, even to save Mike.
"I've already talked to him. Norma is coming out of retirement for the time being."
She just nods silently at Jessica in defeat, out of ways to avoid the horror situation looming in front of her. She feels queasy just thinking of them all being in a room together again.
Jessica stalks away and she thinks surely this day can't get any worse. She's wrong of course.
By 10am her head is already throbbing, having spent the past hour consoling Louis about their impending separation and organising things for Norma's return. She heads to the kitchen to make a coffee, hoping caffeine might grant her the strength she needs to survive the rest of the godforsaken day.
However she doesn't even get to take her first sip before Scottie appears in the doorway.
"Hello Donna."
"Scottie. It's good to see you." Her brain opts for the automatic polite response without thinking, because she's no idea what she's meant to say when first coming face to face with the woman whose husband she slept with.
Scottie raises an eyebrow at her. "I'd imagine you're probably thinking just the opposite actually."
She had always been straight to the point, it was a quality Donna had always admired in the other woman.
She didn't know if Harvey had told her. She'd tried not to think about that, about whether he confessed his sins or whether he hid them away under lock and key and pretended that they never happened.
But the answer to the question she'd tried not to think about was crystal clear on Scottie's face and it was obvious she was there for some sort of confrontation.
"You know."
Her eyebrows raise yet again. "You thought he wouldn't tell me?" There is ice underneath her polite facade.
"I… I don't know."
She wants the ground to swallow her up, for the earth to disappear beneath her feet, for literally anything to happen so that she can escape from this moment. From this conversation. Not that she isn't more than deserving of it.
"Or is what you're actually surprised at is that I stayed with him?"
She is, somewhat. Scottie didn't seem to be the sort of person who would forgive betrayal. But she also knows how hard it is to give up Harvey Specter, how hard it is to cut him out of your heart once he's in there. Whatever her reasons though, it's none of her business.
In the face of Donna's silence, Scottie just shrugs her shoulders. "He just had to get you out of his system Donna, and now it's over, we can move on." There's a warning, a message, in her words. "We're all flawed creatures. I did the same thing with him once so I'm not going to throw away my marriage over some meaningless mistake." Once again her words are pointed.
"I'm telling you this because I know Jessica expects us to all work together on this case and I think it's important everyone knows where they stand."
In other words, she was the wife and she wasn't going anywhere.
She just nods, acknowledging that she's heard what Scottie has to say, because there is not a single word in the English language left in her brain to allow her to respond. She never really considered what a meeting with her would be like, but she's sure this wouldn't ever have been what she'd have imagined had she.
"Dana," she calls as she goes to leave, words finally returning to her. She pauses, but doesn't turn around.
"For what little I'm sure it's worth, I am sorry. I don't like that I did it, it's not what I stand for, and it's a choice that I'll regret for the rest of my life."
Scottie nods, spine stiff. "Good. As you should."
It's hell working with them. Worse than hell actually she's certain. A pit of fire and lava sounds like a relaxing holiday compared to being trapped in an office with them day after day.
Harvey is tense, stressed, snappy. She recognises his reaction to pressure, seen it before plenty of times, except it never used to be directed at her. Now everyone is a target, an outlet for the ball of anxiety and fear that's wound so tight in his chest it's almost visible.
In the past she'd have called him out on it, but it's not like that between them anymore, he's not hers to look after anymore. Besides, they're still barely speaking beyond what was absolutely necessary to work on Mike's defense.
She knows Mike can tell the tension in the room extends far beyond the fact he's facing jail time. What he knows, what he suspects, she's not sure. She highly doubts Harvey has confessed anything to him and she's still not said a word to Rachel even though she's asked many probing questions since Harvey and Scottie resurfaced in their lives. She's just too ashamed to even speak the words out loud.
The bickering and arguing is endless, Mike and Harvey at loggerheads as to the best approach to the trial. They disagree on everything from what evidence to use, what witnesses to put in the stand, to who even should be first chair at the trial.
Scottie tries her best to be the voice of reason in the room, to help the men see each other's points of view and reach a consensus. But Harvey is too stubborn to budge and Mike uses the line about it being his life on the line multiple times a day as his defense against compromise. Her opinions are usually exactly what Donna thinks as well, and under different circumstances she'd have joined forces with her. But it's too awkward, the giant elephant in the room making her meek and small, keeping her thoughts and opinions to herself as she counts the minutes each day until she can leave.
Mike might be the one facing prison, but she feels like she's the one already living in one.
He balls up the sheet of paper in front of him, tossing it down the table to join the growing pile at the end. He groans, scrubbing his hands over his face and reaching for his drink.
"Sorry, I didn't realise you'd still be here."
Her timid voice breaks the silence.
Donna gestures towards the table. "Forgot my laptop."
He nods, waving her in.
"Not going well?" She asks haltingly, like she's unsure whether to try and attempt conversation or if she should just flee as soon as possible.
They've barely spoken since he returned. The truth is he doesn't know what to say to her, even though he hates this strained, uneasy air between them. Hates that they now act like virtual strangers. But he's not sure there's any other option left for them.
This question, it's the closest they've come to a regular conversation in weeks.
"Opening statement," he answers by way of explanation. He's always hated writing them, and this is the most important one he'll ever compose in his life and that pressure is suffocating him and his ability to complete the task.
He hasn't been able to think clearly, hasn't felt his heart beat at a regular, normal interval since he got the phone call that Mike had been arrested. The guilt and regret eats away at him daily, telling him he's the one responsible for all of this mess.
Although if he was truly honest with himself it hasn't just been since that phone call. It started eight months before that in a hotel room and nothing has been the same since then.
He spends his days trying not to look at her, because when he does he sees her naked body spread out on the bed, needy and waiting for him. When she speaks all he hears is her sighing his name as he slid inside her. When he smells the scent of her perfume all he can think about is how he didn't wash the shirt she wore for months, unable to remove her scent.
He thinks all of this while his wife sits in the same room beside him and he hates himself for it. He chose Scottie and his commitment to her, begged her forgiveness, promised to never make the same mistake again, and he meant it. Because he does love her and because he won't be that guy, anymore than he already has been, and he meant the vows he said to her. Divorce would be yet another failure he refuses to add to what feels like an ever growing list at the moment.
So while he hasn't been able to silence the thoughts and the memories and the dreams, he does the next best thing and all but ignores Donna since their return, limiting their interactions to only what was necessary in the scheme of preparing for Mike's trial. That he thinks is the least he can do for his wife, the safest, best, right option. Even though it kills him to not try and fix what he broke between him and Donna.
And yet despite all of that his resolve weakens as soon as he looks at her standing there, looking small and nervous at being caught in the same room as him and not at all like the confident woman he previously knew. It breaks him.
"I'm sorry. I know I'm being an asshole. You don't deserve it."
She nods, looking a little surprised that he'd raised the topic.
"Mike's case, it's a lot," she says quietly, but he doesn't want her to try and excuse his behaviour.
"I don't just mean now, this case." He rubs a hand over his face. "What happened that night, it's on me, it was my mistake, my responsibility to stop, not yours. I never should have tried to blame you."
"Thank you Harvey," she says quietly, and there's gratitude in her eyes at him taking ownership of what happened. "But it was both our mistake."
It stings just a little that she agrees it was a mistake, even though he knows it was.
"I miss you." The words slip out without him giving himself permission to say them, because apparently he wasn't done breaking his self imposed rules enough for one night.
"You shouldn't be thinking that Harvey."
He knows damn well he shouldn't be. All it's taken is five minutes alone with her to be once more teetering along the moral tightrope. He doesn't want to be. He wants to be thinking about his wife, he wants to be thinking about this damn opening statement and witness questions and anything other than how much he misses her.
"I know. But it's still true."
They stare at each other and he's pretty sure she's about to say she misses him too, can see the words forming on her lips and he's desperate to hear her admit it, to know there's still a part of her that doesn't hate him.
"What's going on here?"
Scottie's icy tone suddenly breaks through their silent staring contest.
He clears his throat, forcing himself to switch his gaze to his wife, guilt like acid in his veins even though he tells himself he hasn't really done anything wrong.
Scottie's eyes continue to flick between him and Donna, and he's suddenly thankful that the length of the boardroom table separates them from each other.
"Opening statement," he says once again as an explanation, waving his hand over the mess of crumpled paper strewn around him.
"I just forgot my laptop, I haven't been here long, I'm going." Donna fumbles over her words, somehow making the truth sound like a lie.
"It's fine," Scottie says dismissively. "Besides you'd have to be some extra kind of awful person to sleep with my husband twice."
Donna flinches visibly at her words, the barb hitting its mark, as she hurriedly collects her laptop and rushes out the room.
He doesn't say anything, but Scottie must see the look on his face.
"Calm down Harvey, I can't always be so polite to your mistress."
She's goading him to react and while part of him wants to tell her her comment was unnecessary, he also knows he has no right to say anything.
He had worried Scottie would treat her harsher, had initially suggested she not accompany him to New York, although he wasn't surprised when she insisted, considering just who he would be working in the same office with. For the most part she's treated Donna with an impressive level of intentional disinterest, ignoring her existence as much as she could given the circumstances. But occasionally the facade cracked.
It's not like her reactions were not warranted, but he still hated seeing Donna take the hit for his mistake.
After ten days of arguments the case goes to the jury. She sat through every day, and she has no idea what the verdict will be. She thinks Mike and Harvey put on a decent case, and Mike's closing argument was nothing short of epic. But the prosecutor was good as well, viscous, like a dog with a bone, and because she knows Mike is guilty it's hard to not sit there and listen to her and be convinced.
But as she tells Rachel now they just have to have faith in Mike and Harvey and in the jury making the right decision.
Which is what she's concentrating on doing that night when there's a knock at her door.
"Harvey, what are you doing here?" He's disheveled, shirt untucked, tie gone,
"I know I shouldn't be here, but I needed to talk to you."
"About what?" Fear trickles down her spine.
"About what I have to do tomorrow."
"You're going to turn yourself in aren't you?"
He doesn't have to say anything to confirm her suspicions. The look on his face says it all.
She knew it. It had been there, the idea niggling in the back of her mind that he'd try and jump on the grenade since the moment he returned.
She invites him in against her better judgement and pours them both a drink and he tells her about the deal the prosecutor offered both he and Mike and how he intends to be the one to take it.
"Why?"
"Because it's my goddamn fault," he cries, his voice breaking on the last word. "I did this, I created this. If someone is going to prison tomorrow it should be me."
"Mike's closing was perfect Harvey, if you were on that jury would you vote to convict?"
"I don't know Donna. But I can't take that risk."
"Since when have you stopped having faith in yourself?"
"Since someone else is risking going to prison for my mistake."
"It's not just your mistake. You don't have to be the hero. Mike knew the risk he was taking."
"I'm not trying to be the hero. I'm trying to do the right thing."
He closes his eyes, stress, worry, fear playing over his face like she's watching a movie.
Her heart aches for him, because she knows the guilt is killing him. But she can't encourage this choice, won't give him her blessing to throw away his life and his career out of fear or guilt. Whatever state their relationship was in, she'll never want that for him.
"Harvey," she says softly, "why are you here?"
"You know why."
"I mean, why are you here and not with Scottie. You're talking about going to jail tomorrow and you're with me and not your wife."
She's not really trying to make it about them, because this choice, this moment, is so much bigger than that. She's just trying to figure out where his head is. But that doesn't mean a small part of her doesn't like that she's the one he's come to, that in the face of a life altering decision it's her solace he seeks. Equally as much as it makes her want to scream at him, because it's also not fair on her, or Scottie.
Finally he opens his eyes, looking straight at her as he says, "Because her telling me not to take the deal wouldn't be enough to stop me."
"And me saying it would?" The words are barely more than a whisper, her heart thundering so loudly she's sure he can hear it.
He doesn't answer, but he averts his gaze, bowing his head and it's all the answer she needs.
"Don't do it. Don't fall on your sword," she says immediately, because if her pleas are what will save him then she'll drop to her knees if she has too. "Don't be the hero," she repeats. She knows she's choosing to guarantee Harvey, his freedom, life, safety, career, and leave all the risk on Mike's shoulders. That guilt isn't enough for her to change her mind though.
The war of emotions, the fight between doing what she asks and what he thinks is the right thing is evident on his face.
They sit in the silence of her pleas for a long time, and she wishes she could comfort him in some way but that is absolutely not an option anymore.
"I should go." He eventually says, sighing heavily.
She walks him to the door and he still hasn't said what he's decided and she cannot let him walk out her door without knowing. She stops him with a hand in his arm before he can reach for the door knob.
The touch freezes them both, the first time they have since the night in the hotel room.
"Promise me you'll have faith in yourself and in Mike. Promise me you'll go tomorrow and sit in that courtroom and wait for the verdict." Her eyes bore into his, willing him to make the right choice.
And then finally he nods, ever so slightly. There's no time for relief to flood her body because the next second his lips are on hers, insistent and urgent and she reacts without thought, opening to him, her hands automatically clutching at his arms as she kisses him back just as forcefully, just as desperately, pouring out all the things she can't say into it.
But when her spine hits the wall behind them and his hips grind into her the reality of what they're doing rears its ugly head. This time she won't be making the same terrible decision she did eight months ago.
"Harvey, stop," she pants, pushing at his shoulders. "We can't. I won't do this to her again."
He blinks at her, lost and confused and then his brain catches up and his face turns ashen.
"Fuck," he groans, head dropping forward to bang against the wall behind her. "Fuck."
"You need to go," she whispers.
She needs him to go and win this case and save Mike's future and then she needs him to leave back to London. Because she knows what will happen if he stays here. She doesn't trust herself with him and she doesn't trust him either. She won't be his mistress but she also knows that while she may have had enough willpower to stop them tonight, that fortitude was whisper thin and likely to fail with sustained pressure.
Because no matter what's happened and no matter how hard she's fought it and convinced herself time and time again that she didn't, she was in love with Harvey Specter.
She's also pretty damn sure that he's in love with her, she just doubts he'll ever be brave enough to admit it.
In the end Mike beats him to it. Takes the deal and the fall and the incarceration. Throws his life away. He's never in all his life felt less deserving.
He was nothing more than a lying, cheating, bastard, who did what he pleased, broke any rule he didn't like, threw his morals in the dirt, and yet still his friend protected him.
He pleaded with him to take it back, to let him take his place, but Mike refused.
God he's made such a fucking mess of everything, his entire life. Everything he's touched he's ruined. His career, his friendships, his marriage, Donna.
Equal to the guilt of Mike going to jail is the knowledge of what would have happened if Donna hadn't stopped them last night. Every promise he'd made, to himself, to her, to his wife, shattered in an instance in the face of temptation.
His head spins on the taxi ride back to his apartment and he barely makes it inside in time, falling to his knees in front of the toilet and vomiting, his vision going blurry as his stomach heaves again and again.
Scottie finds him in the bathroom, leaning against the counter, water dripping down his shirt from rinsing his mouth, sweat soaking his spine, as he tries to pull in enough air to his tightly constricted chest.
He knew what it was now, a panic attack. The first time it had happened, after Donna walked out of his hotel room eight months ago, he thought he was having a heart attack. For months afterwards he had continued to have them.
"Mike took the deal," he gasps in explanation.
"Shit," Scottie swears, shaking her head. "At least you had more sense than that."
He blanches, face turning even more ashen.
"You were going to take the deal?" She looks at him incredulously.
"I thought about it," he admits quietly, shoulders dropping. He should have done more than think, he should have taken it the instant it was offered, should have known Mike would sacrifice himself.
She just stares at him, her brow furrowed like she was working through a challenging problem. She's quick though, Scottie was no fool, joining the dots with impressive swiftness.
"Where were you last night Harvey?"
The nausea swirls in his gut again and it's clear she's already guessed the answer to that question.
"You did it again, didn't you?" Her voice is like steel, sharp and pointed.
"No." It's not really the right answer, because he did do something, but he didn't do that and he knows that's what she's asking.
"Because you stopped it?" Yet again she doesn't miss a damn thing, her instincts impeccable.
He bows his head in shame. "She did."
"Fuck you Harvey," she cries, fury in her voice as she explodes. It was different from the first time, she was angry then of course, but in a hurt, acceptance kind of way. Now she's pure rage.
"You're treating me like a fool. I deserve better than this."
"I know." Fuck, does he know. Everyone in his life deserves better than him, but especially her.
"You know, the first time, I thought maybe she was just something you needed to get over. Experience once to lose the mystery and all that. But I was a fucking idiot."
"I'm sorry." The words are beyond inadequate but he doesn't know what else to say.
"Was that even the first time you slept with her?"
"Why does that even matter?" He knows the truth is going to hurt her even more, that it will eradicate the explanation she apparently used in her mind to excuse his actions the first time.
"Just answer the question Harvey."
"No," he admits, because the least he can give her now is the truth. "We slept together after I left the DA's."
"Jesus Christ, you sure played me for a fool didn't you. She's not the one you needed to get out of your system, I was."
Her ring skims across the bathroom counter, the diamond throwing flashes of light around the room.
"I'm done. I'm going back to London. I'll have your stuff sent back and I'll get a lawyer to draw up the divorce papers." She doesn't let him have a choice in the matter and it is nothing less than he deserves.
She storms around the apartment shoving her stuff into her suitcases. He stays in the bathroom, staring at himself and the miserable excuse of a man he is in the mirror until he hears the snap of her suitcase close.
"I never meant to hurt you."
"Yeah well it's a bit late for that now." Her voice was cool, dismissive, but he knew under the facade was a heavy layer of pain. He needs a stronger word than guilt to describe what he's feeling.
She walks towards the door then pauses, shaking her head as she turns back to face him.
"Harvey, at least make this mean something. Make this," she waves her hand between them and the broken, wrecked remains of their relationship. "Make it mean something. Don't keep fucking around, just admit the truth before you ruin yet another persons life."
Then she walks out of his.
She hasn't been home long, emotionally wrung out from consoling Rachel and her own overwhelming guilt knowing that if she'd chosen different words last night she might have been the one hurting instead.
Her instincts tell her exactly who is at her door when the knock echoes through her apartment.
She raises an eyebrow, questioning him, challenging him, because he cannot just continue to keep showing up at her door anymore.
"Scottie's gone back to London. It's over."
She's not sure why she's surprised. Or why his bare finger, which she can't help checking, shoots a shiver up her spine.
She wants to tell him she's sorry, but she can't muster the words.
"She told me to stop being a fucking idiot."
"Sounds like solid advice."
"So that's why I'm here."
"To do what?" She's pretty sure she knows why, but she needs him to be the one to make it clear, to take that final step.
"This."
This time when he presses her to the wall, when his lips claim hers, when his arms wrap around her waist to press her closer to him, she doesn't stop him.
It feels so much sweeter this time, without the shame, even though she knows the weight of what has happened in the past will stay with her for a long time. But as Harvey cups her cheek, threads his hand into her hair and kisses her deeply, she knows that despite that she'll never fully regret it, even if that makes her a terrible person, because it's led them here.
It doesn't take long for the hallway to become insufficient for their needs and so she takes his hand in hers and leads him to her bedroom. Her fingers make quick work of his shirt, too quick in fact as one button skitters free along the floor. She kisses his chest, his throat, returns once more to his lips as if magnetised, their hands moving over their bodies as they shed more layers of clothing.
There's a flash in her memory as he lays her down on the bed, from the last time, except this time everything is different. He hovers above her, kissing her lips, her neck, her breasts, and then shifts lower, nipping the skin over her hip before his fingers hook into her panties, sliding them down and barring her fully to him.
He takes his time, nibbling her inner thigh, tongue teasing around the edges until she tugs on his hair and whines a pleading "please". She catches his smug smile as she looks down, but then he finally puts his mouth on her and she collapses back against the bed in pleasure. He still doesn't rush though, taking time to tease her further, tongue flicking and licking, lips sucking until she's virtually mewling on the bed with need. Finally his tongue sets a steady rhythm against her clit and he slides a finger inside her, firm strokes matching the movement of his tongue and she explodes almost instantly.
The smugness is still there on his face as he moves back up, kissing her slow and deep, the taste of herself on his tongue arousing her even further.
But then he pulls back and the teasing nature disappears from his face as he looks at her, his eyes like fire burning into her with an intensity she's never experienced before. It's not just desire she realises, for the first time he's truly showing her everything he feels and he confirms exactly that, lips sliding along her jawline to her ear. "I love you," he murmurs against her skin, just as his hips push forward, thrusting himself inside her.
She gasps, both at the words and the feel of him inside her, but then he pulls back, and thrusts back in again, harder this time and all she can process for the moment is the feel of his body on hers. She lifts her hips to meet his thrusts, Harvey's mouth all over her, tracking down her neck, sucking on the curve of breast, her nipple, and back again and again to her lips as her body quickly builds a second time.
She rakes her nails along his back, tugs lightly at the strands of hair at the nape of his neck, moaning softly against his lips, completely lost in the feel and sensation of him, and the knowledge that finally they're exactly where they're meant to be.
Harvey adjusts their bodies, pushing up her leg to let him sink even deeper, the angle delicious, overwhelming. She whimpers, her body quivering, close to the edge as he grinds against her clit with every forward thrust.
"That's it baby," he groans against her lips as she tenses and cries out, her body pulsing like a vice around his cock as she explodes. Harvey holds on until the first waves of her orgasm begin to subside before speeding up his thrusts and letting go himself.
"Wow," he collapses onto her, face buried in the crook of her neck. She smiles, running her hands over his back.
"Wow," she agrees. "And for the record, I love you too."
There will be fall out from all of this, hard days and nights fixing the absolute mess he's made, of his life, his career, but he doesn't care. Tonight is about her and them only, tomorrow is the future and he knows that they can fix it all.
He'll fix his relationship with Jessica, he'll find a way to get Mike out of prison, he'll repair the firm he broke apart and one day he'll get his name on the wall it's always belonged on.
He's certain he can do all of it.
Because he can move mountains with her by his side.