The minutes are long, and slow, and awful, awful, awful. Harvey remains slung against their front door with Donna in his arms for as long as he can bear her sobbing, the day's energy draining from her in shining rivulets.
"My friends," she manages, like this isn't even something she's started to consider yet. Maybe it isn't. Harvey's guilty of a similar oversight: there are so many tributaries of this grief which are yet to stem from the main wash of it, and he just hasn't been paying attention to them at all beyond Donna's incarceration alone. "How do I—" she falters, stops. "Harvey. My friends."
"I know," he tries, except he doesn't, not really. Not yet. "But they'll wait for you. You know that."
Maybe she does, but he surmises from the following bout of sobs that the logic of her lifelong friendships isn't quite filtering in past the devastation right now. Harvey combs a hand through her hair, shaken more than anything else by her complete unresponsiveness. No leaning into his touch, no slight twitch in her fingers where she aches to reach out and reciprocate. This feels worse than it was last night, but it's an intangible difference that he can't figure out beyond maybe their proximity to Donna getting locked in a cell.
"Are we gonna see Louis and Jessica tomorrow?"
God. She sounds like a scared kid.
"Only if you want to," he returns.
"Don't," she whispers, and Harvey doesn't press, even if the decision strikes him as a little strange. "Couldn't handle it."
Ah. Harvey feels a shard of his heart shudder out of place. It feels so wrong, so subverted and alien, to have Donna reduced to this. To something broken, unable to function.
"That's fine," he placates. It's her choice, and maybe he should say something about the fact that this is her last chance to see them outside of the confines of a prison visitors' room for the next three years — but that wouldn't be wise. Or sane. "Another time."
It feels wrong just to say it, because really another time is a lifetime away. But maybe that's the solution here. To keep talking about this code-red, disaster-level event as if it's just another Tuesday. Harvey does the math in his head. Another 156 Tuesdays. Give or take.
"Is there anything you wanna do, then? Free day," he manages, braced and fighting against the lump in his throat.
"Run away," she whispers, broken, so broken, and Harvey tries not to let himself stiffen at the vestiges of that particular idea as they creep back in.
"Pretty sure we agreed against that one," he jokes, sounding a whole lot less desperate than he feels. Because, shit. If she says run away like that one more time then really, seriously, he's giving in. He's doing it. Chartering the jet, forging the passports. Harvey knows about a dozen guys who know a guy for this kind of stuff, and maybe 'easy' isn't the word for it but, fuck, it wouldn't exactly be hard.
"Yeah," Donna murmurs, "sorry. Stupid to say."
Harvey feels his heart break a little all over again. (Because it's not stupid. Not at all.)
He presses on.
"We could go to the park," he offers. "Or maybe something really excessive. Wanna rent a helicopter?"
That gets a laugh out of her — or, at least, a watered-down version of something pretty close — and Harvey pulls Donna a little closer, smudging a kiss to the smooth skin of her forehead.
"No helicopters," she mumbles. Her last full day. He'll do anything. "Can we just… walk?"
"Walk?"
"Stroll around, you know? See the sights. The city."
"Absolutely," he presses. Anything.
"Okay," she murmurs, all at once a little quieter. "Thanks, Harvey."
He's not quite sure what to do with that. Her gratitude seems so out of place here, in their front hall, this misery pressing down on them from all angles. Inexorable as gravity. Heavier, somehow.
"You don't have to—"
"I do," she interrupts. "Let me. I do."
"Then you're welcome," Harvey amends. "For—?"
"Staying," she whispers, automatic.
"Donna." He shifts to face her, taking her face between his hands, breaking into pieces as she stares back at him with those wide, terrified eyes. "Hey."
"Hi," she sniffles, so many shards of her collecting across his trembling fingertips.
"You're it for me," he manages, pressing his forehead to hers, his eyes slipping shut at the feeling of her slow exhale against his lips. "There's never— it's just you."
Mind-reader though she might be, Harvey isn't altogether sure that he's ever been fully able to articulate this point. He struggles even now, words escaping him, and he can only hope that the swipe of his thumb against the paper-thin skin beneath her eye can do some of the work for him.
"Sometimes it feels like I don't have a choice in this," he tries, and she stiffens a little. Right, wrong phrasing. "Not like that. Not in a bad way."
"How, then?" Her eyes flutter closed, too — he feels the brush of her eyelashes against his thumb — and for a brief, beautiful moment, there's nobody else in the world.
"Like… nothing about this is deliberate," he whispers. Her eyebrows knit together in confusion. He registers the shift against his own skin. "Being with you. It's like breathing."
"I think I know what you mean," she intones, but she still sounds a little unsure.
"I just— it's never something you have to thank me for. It's not, you know, if not you, then nobody." That might've been a triple negative. Wholly indecipherable. Great.
"You're all there is," he manages, finally. "You're all I know."
"Oh," she breathes. Harvey feels as a single tear rolls into the space where his thumb is pressed against her cheek, and he swipes at it instinctively, smudging the salt into her skin. Really, he should be saying more, expressing the whole truth of the matter — that ever since she walked into his life he knew it was going to be her, that their relationship was always as inevitable as dawn, that sometimes when they make eye contact across a room he feels like he was only ever half a human until she came along and filled in the gaps in his skeleton — but that's possibly a bit too much for right now. Or, hey, maybe ever. Some of this stuff could go in his vows, actually, but shit, shit, he cannot be thinking about marriage right now.
"It's just not something you have to thank me for," he whispers, voice full of air. "Staying. It's not… a choice that I make. There's just no other option. I couldn't leave you." He smiles, and she must feel it, sense it, because she does too. "I wouldn't know where to go."
He feels as though he's doing a pretty terrible job at this, making their whole relationship sound vaguely like a hostage situation, but these really are the types of confessions which only come to light late at night two days before a prison sentence — and she needs to know. If only so that the guilt of his commitment to her will finally stop being Donna's cross to bear.
Harvey thinks, a little listlessly, run away with me. But he can't say it again. Won't. Any more heartache and they're both as doomed as each other.
Not that it matters. Donna's pressing into him, her lips open, seeking, and Harvey meets her halfway, a man drowning. She tastes like the salt-slick of tears, her breath hitching when Harvey slides his tongue against the seam of her lips. He takes that edge and runs with it, cradling the back of her neck in one hand while the other skates down her torso, his blood singing when Donna keens into him a little as he cups her through the thin material of her shirt.
"Shit," she breathes, and fuck, god, he wants her.
"Bedroom," he whispers against her mouth, breaking away for a moment to try and pull them both up, but then she's grasping hold of his forearms, skimming her teeth against his throat as she drags him forcefully back down to her.
"No," she murmurs, finding his mouth again, this endless siren of lips, teeth, tongue. "Want you here. Now."
"Donna—"
"Please," she moans, ragged with it. "Please, Harvey."
He cuts her off with another searing kiss, hands already fumbling at the buttons of her blouse as she drapes one knee over his lap, straddling him, using the height to her advantage as she swipes her tongue deep into his mouth. Harvey loops his arms around her back and pushes forwards until she's letting him take over, rocking her hips into his as he lays her down onto their panelled hallway floor.
The first thing Harvey notes when he wakes the next morning is the dread that pools in his stomach at the fact that they're officially one day closer to the end of the world.
The second thing is that, holy shit, they are not as young as they used to be.
Two rounds on the floor — and one on the couch, and technically a fourth for Donna in bed at the end there — have served to remind him of literally all of the joints in his body, and he's almost certain that there are gonna be some conspicuous bruises across his elbows by the time he looks in the mirror later.
"Hey, stud," he hears from beside him, and Harvey turns to crack a grin at his girlfriend. It's funny how little they use that word. He quite likes it.
"Funny. Last night was a joint effort, in case you forgot."
"No," she murmurs, her gaze just slightly darker, leaning in to smudge her lips to his. "Didn't forget."
There's a sadness to her eyes, a flatness to her voice, which he pretends not to notice. Not right now. She's making jokes, smiling across at him, and that's enough for now. It has to be.
"So," he says, "Park date?"
"Walk date," she corrects, quietly, "but I'd love to spend some of it in the park, sure."
There's a strange sort of guilt starting to creep in around the lack of traditional 'dates' which he's taken her on in the last few years — they go to a lot of restaurants, sure, and she loves when he agrees to tag along with her to see some of the shows on Broadway, but there's a distinct emptiness in his memory when he thinks about actual daytime things, like hiking, cycling, even stupid couple shit like bowling or renting out a paddleboat in the park. He makes a quiet note of it: things to do when she's out. Once this is over. He'll take her to the Hamptons, teach her how to sail.
Donna gets up before he does, getting dressed quickly and padding out in the direction of the kitchen while Harvey starts to shift his own way up from the bed.
"You want coffee?"
No. He wants to run. He wants her to get in his car and let him drive her to the airport and just go, go, get out of here. He wants to lock their door and never open it, wants to bury them both in a hole in the earth until their rotting bones replace the ache of this devastation, wants to turn back time and wrench her so hard away from that stupid goddamn document that the force of it topples every shelf in the file room.
He wants, and wants — and wants. It isn't enough. He wants to save her. It was never going to be enough.
"No," he murmurs, through the haze. He sees the tick in her brow as she takes him in, sees the way she swallows down her concern. Today has to be good. They both need this — one normal day, before everything goes to ruins. "No, I'm good."
They stand across the kitchen counter from each other in silence as the coffee percolates. She's looking at the espresso machine: he's looking at her.
"You should get dressed," she says, and she still won't make eye contact. It sounds almost like a warning. The machine stops whirring, lets a heavy silence fill the room in its place. She just stares at the coffee, keeps staring, watching the liquid as it swirls around her mug. Her favourite mug. This shitty piece of porcelain with Keep Calm and Go Carp Fishing emblazoned on its side that they spotted once, hungover in a vintage store, and it made her laugh so hard out of nowhere that he went back the next day and bought it for her as a stupid early birthday present. It's such a lovely memory that it feels out of place in this haunted kitchen. Harvey wonders if she's thinking about it too.
"Okay," he manages, finally. She doesn't react. "Back in a few."
He wants to tell her that he loves her, but he can't find the words.
When he comes back five minutes later, dressed down in a dark jumper and loose jeans, she seems to have pulled herself back together again.
"Nice outfit," she grins (it doesn't quite meet her eyes), and he passes back a smile which feels equally as plastered-on.
"Thanks. You ready?"
"Almost," she murmurs, then she's stepping into him, slotting her open mouth to his and kissing him so hard that his knees almost buckle. She pulls away just as suddenly, eyes twinkling. Harvey feels the relief flood like ichor into his chest. They can do this. She can do this.
"Ready now."
HELLO! had my first free day in genuinely over a month today (? that's so nuts. post-graduation summer is NOT for the weak) so i finally finally wrote another chapter i am SO sorry for the delay! going to try and promise more regular updates from now on but im very sorry if i immediately break that promise and don't update for another light year. that's on me. ideally this fic will be finished by october when i start uni but honestly who knows. maybe this godforsaken story will be my cross to bear through the entirety of my tertiary education. WE WILL SEE!
comments / reviews are always endlessly motivating xoxox