When Harvey comes back to himself a full two minutes later, his pulse is still racing at lightning speed beneath his skin.
"Your heart's beating so fast," he hears Donna murmur, her face mostly pressed against his sternum.
"Yeah, well," he manages. "Cardio."
She laughs, shifts, letting out a soft whimper at the absence as she pulls slowly off of him. She's gentle as she goes, lifting her head to smile up at him, zipping his trousers back up with a softness which nearly knocks him out all over again.
"That was…" Harvey searches for the word. And keeps searching.
"Indescribable?" She's smiling, but the sadness is back in her gaze and Harvey feels all at once helpless in a way he never has before.
He finds the word. Devastating.
"Indescribable," he confirms, mostly because he doesn't think he can bear the thought of making her any sadder. And then: "I love you."
Her brow furrows a little.
"Harvey," she starts, and he knows what she's about to say before she's even started saying it.
"Don't."
"This doesn't mean—"
"It does, Donna. I'm not leaving you."
He watches her face as it shifts through a whole carousel of emotions, landing finally on a resigned sort of acceptance which feels so foreign from the Donna that he knows. There's a darkness, though, a thread of doubt through the expression which he doesn't quite have the strength to try and unravel right now.
"Okay," she says, finally, sounding equal parts guilty and grateful. She's still strewn on top of him, still lying prone across his whole body, and Harvey takes the closeness as an opportunity to press a palm to her cheek. Supplication.
"You'd do the same for me," he urges. It's not a question.
"Of course I would," she returns, sounding dog-tired. "It's who we are."
Maybe that's the problem, he thinks, but he doesn't voice it, would never voice it.
Donna smiles at him, softly — maybe she can't read his mind — and rests her head heavier against his palm, setting her chin down against his chest again. Her eyes are still so wide, so scared, but god, he thinks, she's so beautiful.
It's something he's had to get used to, actually. The sight of her in his apartment, the way her features are somehow enhanced by the way she exists so naturally in his home, their home. The day she agreed to move in with him still sits in his mind as one of the best days he's ever had.
And then two things happen, very suddenly, all at once.
She says: "shit, the pasta sauce."
He says: "run away with me."
Both five syllables. The outside edges of a haiku.
Harvey jolts up, cranes his neck to check the pan which, luckily, is still just sizzling away on the stove instead of smoking. Or on fire. (Small victories.) He goes to shift out from beneath Donna to turn the gas off anyway, registering only then how her body has gone completely rigid above his.
"What did you just say?"
Oh. Right. That.
Run away with me.
"Um."
"Come on," she murmurs, voice suddenly thick. "Don't do that. Don't be mean."
He— what?
"Mean?"
"You can't just say things like that. Not when— not now."
They're doing this. Are they doing this? How does he even start voicing this thought without sounding deranged?
"I wasn't joking," he says, too fast, finally giving way to the words which have been plaguing him since the verdict. And he's not joking, not even a little bit. He's being so deadly serious that it hurts his throat.
The look that Donna fixes him with is a little distraught, a little defeated, the exact same expression she wears every time he says something like it's okay or we have time and she can tell that neither one of them really actually believes it. Except he does, this time. He does believe it. She has to know.
"Donna, no, listen," he says, and he sounds ridiculous, he's so completely aware of that, he sounds one hundred percent delusional, "This isn't a joke."
"Then you're insane," she whispers, fondly, with the exact intonation of a teacher telling a kindergartner that no, feeding the class hamster a really big carrot will not turn it into a rabbit.
"I have a jet," he continues, despite the resignation in her voice, wincing at how much of a rich bastard the words make him sound. "Well, not— it's not my jet, but it's privately chartered, and I can use it whenever it's free, which it is for the next week and a half. And I have a place, um. In Bali. You know that." God, he's the worst. But it's true, it's all true.
Donna's brow furrows.
"Don't tell me you've actually been considering this."
"I have," he replies immediately, desperate to get the point across. "I have. Since the gavel came down. They don't extradite to the U.S. in Indonesia. We'd be safe there." His hands are at her shoulders, holding tight. With every word that he says, Donna looks more and more at odds with what on earth to say in response.
She's clearly taking his urgency as something borne of futility, his ramblings merely the words of a madman about to face his sentence. But he's not kidding.
"I… Harvey," she whispers, caught between about fifteen different emotions. God, she loves him so much. "It's okay. Really."
"What?"
"You did everything you could. I know that."
"Listen to me—"
"No. You listen to me. This isn't your fault." The resolution in Donna's voice is going to haunt him forever. She's surrendering. She's already given in. Her eyes mist with tears, the love in her gaze clouded over with a grief which threatens to drown them both. Three years. "I committed the crime, plain and simple. I destroyed evidence. There's not a lawyer in the world good enough to change the facts."
Harvey shakes his head, heaves in a panicked breath.
"You don't understand," he manages finally, sounding utterly defeated. Except she does understand. Better than anyone. "I'm good enough. I should've been good enough. I don't— you don't even remember burying it—"
Then he's shifting out from beneath her, faster than she can react, backing away like their proximity alone is the thing which is set to doom her.
(To Donna it's this: she committed the crime, she's going to prison. Her fault. Her fault. Justice, no matter its cruelty.
To Harvey it's this: she committed the crime for him. She's going to prison for him. His fault. His fault. Injustice, and he's the best lawyer in this fucking city, and he couldn't fix it.)
Donna sits up, careful not to follow him. Not yet. He's a bitten dog.
"You couldn't save me," she says, more of a suggestion than a fact.
Harvey nods, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth. The noise he lets out is caught between a gasp and a sob.
"The only case I've ever lost," he grits, trying to blink back the tears. He fails. "And it was yours."
"Nobody blames you," she tries. He looks at her like he's the god she just blasphemed.
"I blame me." Oh, Harvey. "The most important case of my life, and I—" he breaks off, turns away like the shame of this is too great for even Donna to see. "I couldn't win it. I couldn't save you."
Everything clicks at once. He couldn't save her — but he's still trying. He's never going to stop trying. It's all he knows.
"You did everything you could," she says, again, hoping that this time it actually lands.
"But what if there was more? What if— if I had just—"
He's spiralling. A panic attack, or at least the beginning of one. Even though she probably knows better, Donna stands, takes a step towards him and then another when he doesn't flinch away.
"You can't save everyone," she whispers, once she's close enough. He startles, looking up at her like he didn't even notice her approach. Harvey opens his mouth, probably to object, but Donna gets there first. "I know. It's what you do. Your mother, your brother, Mike, Louis, Jessica. But, Harvey, you're not superhuman. Something had to give eventually."
"But…" he gestures weakly in her direction, chest heaving. "It's you."
Donna smiles, endlessly soft, acting far braver in the face of this tragedy than she really feels.
"It's me," she agrees. "And it's still going to be me in three years."
(Well. She hopes.)
She hears him repeat the words back to himself — it's still going to be you — like he's having to convince himself of the truth behind them. The burden of strength always been a wildly swinging pendulum between them, but this evening more than ever: first it was Harvey holding her together, now it's Donna keeping him from falling to pieces. It's a dance they know well.
"The pasta sauce," she reminds him, gently, like this is any other evening.
She can almost see the moment his countenance flips to autopilot, something shuttering down pasts his irises as Harvey stands. Donna wants to say something else, anything to calm him, but it all feels a little futile. She can say whatever she wants and it won't change the facts, and he knows it. He makes his way over to the stove, flicking off the gas and whirring a wooden spoon around the pan like this is any other evening.
Donna gets up to follow him, but there's something about the defeat in his posture that plasters her back down to the couch. It's a feeling she's used to — wanting to help him, wanting to save him — but not like this. Not when there's nothing she can actually do to fix things. She turns away, lying back down and casting her gaze towards the ceiling where it's safe. She hears him going through the motions, filling a new pot with water, portioning out the pasta. The longer it goes on, the worse it feels: the helplessness. He's boiling a pot of water and she's going to prison in three days. He's setting the table for dinner and she has three more nights with this man before he loses her to a jail cell.
But she can't react, and she won't, because they're even right now in terms of breakdowns and (truthfully,) Donna isn't fully sure that Harvey still has the strength to comfort her. They can pretend — they're actually very good at pretending. Ignoring emotions, ignoring truths. It's who they are. Who they were, once.
Everything has changed. Donna takes a heaving breath and she hears the silence from the kitchen as Harvey reacts to the sound of he anguish, flicks the gas off again, makes his way over. God, again. This wasn't supposed to happen. He doesn't say anything, though, just sits down beside her, heavy with exhaustion.
It's an invitation, and she recognises it, and it hits Donna all at once just how much they know each other. Down to body language alone, down to silence, down to breathing. She could recognise him by heartbeat, she thinks, and they're about to lose all of that. Three years — he'll develop habits that she won't recognise, she'll pick up tells that he doesn't know to see through. The thought dismantles her.
She shifts a little, lies her head down into the space that Harvey's lap provides. The comfort from that alone is instant, tension washing from his posture like rain. Out of pure habit, his hand finds her hair, but instead of carding his fingers through her flame-red locks like he usually does, Harvey just leaves his hand there, stationary, holding on. Fingers intertwined. She loves him. He knows that.
Donna closes her eyes, the trust implicit. She nuzzles her face forwards into the starch of his shirt even through the proximity makes it a little hard to breathe, inhaling the scent of him, revelling in the warmth of his palm against her skull. She needs him. She needs this like oxygen. This loss is going to kill her. They must stay like that for twenty minutes at least, dinner forgotten, but the glaring truth of this entire evening is that neither Donna nor Harvey were actually ever that hungry at all.
When she finally opens her eyes again, Harvey is staring down at her, a softness to his expression which belies the horror of their predicament.
"Were you asleep?"
She shakes her head, feels his fingers twitch at the movement.
"No. Just comfortable."
"I love you."
Abrupt. Necessary. Very Harvey. Donna presses a sideways kiss to his torso.
"I love you too. So much."
They stay like that for a little longer, the drumbeat of Harvey's pulse playing soft against her skin. She feels him take in a breath, like he's about to say something, and then the air stutters in his chest.
"What is it?" she murmurs.
"My favourite colour is dark red," he says, without warning. "Like the colour of the walls in your old apartment."
Donna turns her head and makes eye contact again. A question in her gaze: where are you going with this? He blinks but won't hold it, directing his line of sight to the safe zone of her left shoulder.
"My favourite book is My Side of the Mountain," he continues. "I think. I read it in fifth grade, so maybe not anymore." Harvey swallows, his irises hazy with contemplation. "I can only swim front crawl, not butterfly. I hate sweet popcorn, love salted. The first bone I ever broke was in my wrist, when I fell off my bike. I've broken six in total. I've been to four funerals and seventeen weddings, and I've worn the same tie to all of them. I used to be really scared of the dark, and deep water. My—"
"—Harvey," Donna breaks in, drawing her own hand up to his in her hair. She frowns at the slight tremble in his fingertips, at the way his breaths are coming out a little sharper than they were before. "Why are you telling me this?"
"My favourite movie is The Godfather. Part two, not the first one." He keeps going, sounding so desperate — she lets him. She's not sure what else to do. "You have to know these things. You have to— they're not the kind of things you'll be asking me about once you're in there, Donna." He sucks in a shuddering breath. "And you need to know. You have to know. I can't—"
Harvey breaks off as she sits up, presses a palm to his cheek, shifts backwards into his lap so that her whole weight is strewn against him, keeping him grounded. He's right — these aren't the kind of niceties they'll be discussing as a couple once she's in there — but he's also forgetting a crucial detail.
"I know," she whispers, and the ceaseless tide of his anxiety finally seems to ebb. "I know these things, Harvey. It's my job. Has been for years now."
Donna tries a smile; it falls a little flat, but it gets her point across. She knows him. She does.
"It's your job," he repeats under his breath, like he doesn't quite believe it. "Years."
She nods, feels his arms come up to band around her.
"I knew about your favourite book because you joked one time about not having read a fiction novel since grade school. Which, by the way, is concerning if true."
His lips curl up at the edges, just a fraction, and she thinks, okay. Okay.
"Nobody can swim butterfly. And anyway, you hate swimming."
Another one for the bank. Her knowledge of him has always seemed to have this effect — equal parts awe and shock. Sometimes want. Not just from Harvey, but from everyone she ever speaks to about him. He's an encyclopaedia, and she marvels sometimes at the fact that no-one else has ever seemed to notice that about him.
"We went to the cinema that one time and I asked for sweet popcorn and you fixed me with such a scathing look that I changed my order. I knew about the broken bone, Harvey. You still have the scar. I also knew about your go-to wedding tie, because I'm the one who has to have it dry cleaned after every goddamn ceremony. We've all been scared of the dark. Deep water is another given. And, come on, The Godfather Part Two? I could've guessed that twelve years ago. It—"
He cuts her off with a brief, searing kiss, more of a smudging of lips than anything else. When he breaks away, there's a keening sort of relief etched into every flare of his expression.
"My favourite colour," he breathes. "You haven't told me how you knew my favourite colour."
Donna only smirks, presses a little further into him.
"The dark red of my old wallpaper?"
He nods.
"Harvey. Come on. First colour you would've seen when you finally came home to me."
A good answer. The right answer, she hopes.
Harvey's face lights up like a little kid's, and then very suddenly shifts its way through about seven other emotions. It lands at last on a deep, echoing sadness, and Donna wonders for a moment if she's just said completely the wrong thing.
"Shit," he manages. It takes him another few moments before he can find the strength to speak again. "You really know me."
"Yeah," she returns, softening the hand at his jaw. As if he didn't know. "I really do."
A silence. Can she hear his heartbeat or is that just her imagination?
"I can't lose you." The thought floods from him all over again, rushed and unbidden, and maybe it's selfish, maybe it's useless, but Donna just doesn't know what else there is to say.
"You won't," she whispers, pressing the words into his skin, because he has to believe her. This cannot work if he doesn't believe her. "You won't, I'm telling you."
The current is back, the tide, this restlessness which tends to take hold of him in moments like these and sweep everything else over the edge with him. Harvey's pulse thuds visibly at the hollow of his throat, his hands clenching and unclenching into fists over and over. And then he's still again, motionless, catching her gaze at last and holding it unnervingly steady.
"Run away with me," he says, and something must be seriously wrong because oh god, oh god, she wants to.
"Harvey—"
"I'm being serious. We could. Donna."
"Don't do this," she implores, because he can't make her hope like this, he can't—
"Run away with me."
"Please—"
"To Indonesia, like I said before."
"You're being delusional."
"Run away with me."
"Harvey. Stop."
"Run away with me."
And oh, God help her, because there's a stone-solemn severity to his words, and he sounds so convinced by it, by the success of it, and he must see the defeat as it starts to shutter over her expression because— shit, he's looking at her like— like if he says it again, he knows—
"Run away with me—"
"—Okay."
Okay? She sounds insane. Off the rails. Uncharted levels of batshit nuts. But he's looking at her like she's the daylight at the end of an Arctic winter, and she loves him so much, and if nothing else then he at least has to know.
"Run away with— what?"
"Okay," she repeats, inanely. There's nothing else to say, really.
"…Okay?"
"I promised you once that I'd follow you anywhere," she starts. The endorphins won't last, she's sure. They'll realise that this is senseless, stupid, impossible. The light will fade, and the plan will never form, and she will go to prison for three years just like she's been sentenced to. But— not yet. She can lie to him for now — and she will — because she would do anything for him. Even this. "This is that promise. This is the anywhere."
"You'll… run away with me."
Donna takes a deep, trembling breath. She won't make him a criminal. She can't. But he doesn't know that yet, and he doesn't have to know for three days, and right now it looks like the lie is the only thing keeping him afloat. Alive. The verdict was a storm, and this is how she saves him.
"I'll run away with you."
They've lived an entire life predicated on mutual sacrifice. What's one more?
so sorry this chapter took so long to write ... no more excuses im just slow as shit tbh. and i have exactly 6 free days between now and the tenth of august ? so that might not bode well for speedy writing, but we'll see. summer is insane. but at least exams are over!
it feels a little strange to be writing harvey this desperate, like hopeless to the point of delusion, but i did try and write donna into the role of wanting to run away and it just didnt fit at ALL. i think if it was him going to prison, she might be the one to suggest running away, and he would be the one just trying to accept it / mitigate, but because it's donna with the verdict i just couldnt see this going any other way than harvey and his errant desperation. so i hope this works!
comments are always appreciated xoxox