A/N: Hey there again :) New chapter is here and this is when absolutely everything will change for them... I hope you enjoy it!
The next morning, the sound of the alarm wakes Harvey up as it reverberates in his head.
"Damn it!" he grumbles, struggling to silence the alarm without opening his eyes yet. The events of last night elude him in the fog of his mind, but the familiar symptoms of excess alcohol—a pounding headache, an unsettled stomach, and a pervasive sense of disorientation—confirm his suspicions.
As he reaches out to the vacant space beside him, his hand meets only cold sheets. A surge of confusion mingles with his discomfort; she must have risen early. Some flashes of the previous night appear in his mind, though they are very blurry.
Attempting to rise abruptly, the bedroom spins in a disorienting blur, his hangover proving more severe than anticipated. Clutching the walls for support, he navigates unsteadily to the kitchen. A whole bottle of water does little to quench his thirst; his mouth still feels dry, and his search for Donna throughout the house is hindered by worsening nausea, a tightening sensation in his chest, and an awful tingling that creeps into his left arm. How much scotch had he drunk? Damn.
Finding Donna sleeping in the guest room feels like a punch to the gut, stirring up a storm of emotions he struggles to contain.
His chest tightens, feeling the despair of trying to find answers. Has she already made up her mind to leave him? Is their relationship hanging by a thread, teetering on the brink of collapse? The thought sends a shiver down his spine, igniting a spark of panic within him.
"Donna!" he shouts, too loud. The hangover and sadness that flood him do not allow him to think clearly, and he decides to wake her up—the sooner the better. "Donna!" he shouts again.
Donna, who had heard him the first time, curls up even more. She had managed to sleep for several uninterrupted hours, and if it weren't for Harvey waking her up with his yelling, she might have had a slightly better morning. The lack of his hugs to fall asleep, the constant anguish tangled in her chest, and the tension in their shared bed had meant that she had barely slept for weeks. Walking away from him had brought her some respite from sleep. But when she realizes it, it only serves to deepen her sadness.
"What the hell are you yelling at me for?" She sits up in bed and shouts back. Her body is still sleepy, but her mind is already alert.
"Why are you sleeping here?" Harvey persists, looming over her, his anger palpable.
Donna inhales deeply to regain her composure while assessing Harvey's agitated mood—dilated pupils, clenched jaw and fists, sweaty body, and labored breaths—all indicators that he's teetering on the edge.
"I won't share a bed with you until you're capable of having a mature conversation with me," she spits back, although she no longer yells. She no longer knows what she feels; it's a mix of pain, anger, annoyance, and disappointment that overwhelms her.
"I could talk to you if you were ever damn home!" He continues yelling louder and louder, seemingly completely out of control, which puts Donna even more on edge.
Donna gets out of bed in a heartbeat, confronting Harvey head-on. "Let me get this straight," she begins, her tone laced with bitter irony. "You get to call all the shots and dictate the terms of our lives, and I'm supposed to bend over backward to accommodate you. But the moment I ask for something, you not only refuse to compromise but also dare to blame me? Fuck you, Harvey!" She spits in his face, well aware that if they don't stop this argument right now, everything will blow up again. That's why, before giving him a chance to respond, she storms out of the room. A flicker of hope still persists within her: the possibility of salvaging their marriage. Yet she knows she can't do it just by herself.
"So now you're saying all you've ever done is follow me around and cater to my every whim, Donna? I've never seen you so upset about it!" Harvey retorts, following her while still shouting. "Have you been secretly miserable all these years being with me?"
"Don't you dare!" she whirls around, her voice trembling as she weakly pushes him away, desperate to maintain some distance. "Don't you dare!" she repeats, her eyes flashing with indignation.
"I don't get you, Donna! Sure, we've had our rough patches, but I've never seen you so full of regret about being with me." He responds with a mixture of sadness and anger, ready to explode inside him.
"I never said I regretted it," she replies, her voice cracking as tears spill down her cheeks. "And the hardest part is, I'd do it all over again because that's what love is about, you idiot!" She pauses to wipe away her tears. "If there's one thing I feel for you, it's love—a love so consuming it's shattered me more times than I can count. That's why I've done everything I've done for you. But I guess I'm just stupid for waiting for you to do the same for me this time. Instead, you're the same self-centered, egoistic person you've always been. I've bent over backward for you at work and then uprooted our lives to move across the country. And you can't make a single sacrifice for me?" Her words, a torrent of pent-up frustration, pour forth as he stares at her, bewildered. "You're being so damn unfair to me!"
"You're the one who walked out of this house; you're the one who decided it was best not to see each other for more than half the week! So don't lecture me about unfairness when you were the first to abandon ship before it even hit the iceberg, Donna!"
"What? What on earth are you talking about? I didn't abandon you! If this ship goes down, I'll sink with you. What part of 'I love you so much it breaks me' don't you understand?" She keeps shouting, getting more and more confused.
"Don't talk to me about love. If you truly loved me, you wouldn't have left me high and dry like this!"
"So, pursuing one of my dreams means abandoning you? It means I don't love you? You know so damn well that I do, Harvey! Life can't always revolve around your desires."
"So, forgive me for wanting to share my life with my wife. How selfish of me!" he retorts, dripping with sarcasm before turning on his heel and heading to the kitchen.
"Can't you just stop being so unfair for a moment?" Donna implores, trailing after him. For heaven's sake, she just needs him to listen, if only for a damn minute.
"No, because I'm not the one being unfair here!" Harvey maintains his stance, grabbing another bottle of water from the fridge. Damn it, he's never had such a terrible hangover.
"Yes, you are, Harvey. And I thought you had matured enough to see it for yourself. I have every right, just like you, to do whatever hell I want with my career, and you, as my husband, should support me. Just like I supported you when you wanted to leave the New York firm and start working at a clinic here."
"That's the big problem? That I forced you to leave New York?" He reacts with a scream that leaves her perplexed. "I haven't seen you so unhappy here."
"No, Harvey!" She huffs, dropping her elbows on the kitchen counter and resting her forehead in her hands. "I did it because I wanted to. Because I wanted the possibility of a fresh start with you, and because the idea of working with Mike and Rachel was great, but Harvey," she dares to look at him again. God, she's trying her best to have a calm conversation with him, but she's not making it easy for her. "I tried for a long time, and no matter how many good causes there are, it didn't fulfill me enough. Most of the time, I have no work to do; they pay me a salary just because they like me, not because of my actual value to the place. And I know that. And it's frustrating. Can you get that?"
"No, Donna. You're valuable wherever you go." He spits out immediately, repeatedly shaking his head and waving his hands, as if that last bit could take away the growing discomfort in his chest.
"No, Harvey. I'm not." She swallows hard and wipes her tears again. "I didn't feel comfortable there; I didn't feel like I was living up to my full potential." She clears her throat, feeling incredibly exhausted from arguing with him when he doesn't even try to understand her. "I don't regret everything I've done; I enjoyed it, Harvey... But despite that, I buried my dream of working as an actress deep down, and I just wanted to pick it up again... When I felt the clinic wasn't the right fit for me anymore, I thought it could be the opportunity to give it another shot." She says this, sobbing. "I could never have done it in New York because it was the way to keep us together. Working together was all we had back then. But of course, I guess you never realized I did it for that reason, did you?" She looks at him; no need for an answer. He never sees all the sacrifices she made for him. "Then we came here, and I was excited about the new job, but even more excited about starting our marriage here. I believe we succeeded, that we had the marriage we wanted; we were happy." Her voice carries a mix of anguish and nostalgia that hits Harvey hard. "I was very happy with you, Harvey. We were much more than I had dared to imagine. We built a marriage that was my safe place, and now I don't know where the hell it is."
"I was very happy too," he mumbles, dropping his elbows on the counter in front of her. The tingling in his arm creeps up to his shoulder, and the feeling of dizziness increases.
"That's why I thought my husband would be able to support me in something like this." She adds, unable to look at him right now. "I thought the love you felt for me was enough to support me in something like this."
"Don't speak in the past tense; I still love you, Donna," he says, his voice cracking. He knows he doesn't show it enough, but for God's sake, his love for Donna will never fade.
"I don't know if I can believe you right now, Harvey. I stopped feeling it a long time ago," she says, her words like daggers piercing his chest. She knows she's hurting him deeply, but she's past the point of caring. This isn't how she imagined this conversation, but they're here now, forced to confront their truth. They're either going to navigate this storm together or be torn apart by it. There's no middle ground. Not anymore.
"Well, apparently, we feel the same way," he replies, his voice breaking as he rises from the counter. His arm throbs with pain, and the weight of his body feels unbearable.
"I never wanted to—" she murmurs, her voice barely audible, her regret palpable. She never intended for her actions to lead to the unraveling of her marriage with Harvey.
"You didn't want to?" he erupts, turning to face her. "You never considered how leaving me would affect me like this? Donna, come on, you're smart enough to understand that!"
"Then what? Is this some kind of revenge?" She matches his intensity, struggling to recognize the Harvey she once knew.
"A revenge? What the hell are you talking about?"
"You stopped taking care of me as revenge because I dared to do something for myself?"
"No, you made a choice for yourself. You chose to leave me, which is entirely different!"
"I never left you, Harvey! God!" she yells, pacing the kitchen in frustration. "If I wanted to abandon you, believe me, I've had ample opportunities and countless reasons to do so."
"Didn't you? Because that's how it felt," he says, his voice choked with tears, barely able to speak.
"And why didn't you say anything before?" She yells; if they were talking on better terms, she might try to be understanding, but right now, she just can't.
"Because I never thought I needed to; you've always just known!" He retorts, bitterness lacing his words, a bitterness that frightens Donna.
"No, Harvey. No!" She growls, unable to believe they're having this conversation again. "You're a grown man; you can communicate what you need instead of expecting me to read your mind. I'm not your damn mind reader!"
"Well, you've always been, Donna." His words come out with rancor from his lips.
"Harvey, for God's sake!" she says, shaking her head in disbelief. "All the years you spent without talking about your family issues weren't enough proof that things need to be spoken about?" she asks with frustration.
"Stop bringing the past into this conversation!" he retorts.
"Conversation? This isn't even a conversation," she scoffs bitterly. "A conversation involves people listening and understanding each other, looking at each other... And that's something you and I stopped doing a long time ago."
"You brought us to this point," he says, and this time he doesn't sound angry; he sounds disappointed. Donna had always been the one to keep people together; for as long as he'd known her, that was one of her greatest qualities—to make people put their shit together and stick together. Why the hell couldn't she do it with them? Why couldn't she take them back to that place where they were so happy?
"It's impossible to reason with you," she growls, shaking her head in complete denial. "All you can do is blame me?"
"Yes, Donna, because all of this is on you," he grumbles, clutching his left arm as the tingling intensifies into stabbing pain.
"For all I know, marriages involve two people, Harvey," she says, her voice trembling with tears. "I know I contributed to the problem, but you haven't lifted a finger to fix it. So what? You just sit there and expect me to solve everything, like always. You're a damn adult! You can solve your problems on your own!"
"But this is your problem, Donna!"
"No, Harvey. You're so wrong! This is our problem! Or have you already decided to completely abandon this marriage?" Donna pauses, waiting for a response from him that never comes. "Aren't you even clear about that? Do you hate me that much now, Harvey?" She asks, leaving all the screaming behind for a moment, her voice sounding muffled, like she's about to break into a thousand pieces. "But given how much you enjoy it when I read your mind, I suppose I should have known! You do not want what I want anymore, which is why you have not done anything to fix this."
"I never said that, Donna!" He growls, too immersed in the pain that doesn't stop growing in his left arm, spreading mercilessly towards his chest. "I still want this; I still love you." He gasps, feeling like the air in his lungs is no longer enough.
"It doesn't look like you do." She responds, not having the courage to look at him. "If you still do it, I can't feel it anymore. If you still do it, do your part to try to fix this shit."
"You have to fix this, Donna, not me!"
"God, Harvey… Are you seriously answering me the same thing again? I'm so fucking tired of this!" It feels worse than trying to reason with a five-year-old, and the frustration keeps multiplying inside her.
"Fine, if you're tired, you know where the door is."
Donna is taken aback by his words. "You're the one letting this ship sink."
"Me, Donna? Me?" He erupts again, the pain in his chest unbearable, his frustration boiling over.
"We agreed to talk, remember? I wanted to talk to you last night, but you said you wanted to sleep. I suggested breakfast, and you said you'd rather wait for me at night. And you know what, Harvey? Last night's performance got canceled, and I've been here waiting for you. I set up dinner, opened a bottle of wine... all so we could have a civilized conversation, like the adults I thought we were in this marriage. But not only did you show up late, which is forgivable, you didn't even know I was waiting... But you arrived over an hour and a half after my usual return time, and you were completely drunk!" She says, her voice choked with tears, struggling to breathe. "And now you wake me up by yelling? Is that how someone who wants to fix things behaves?"
"You went to sleep in another bed, Donna!" he protests, his voice cracking.
"Because I'm angry with you. Can't you see that? It hurts and infuriates me that you gave up on us long ago," she says, her facade of strength crumbling.
"You were the one who abandoned ship first, Donna," he growls, feeling like he's on the verge of collapse.
"No, Harvey. I simply wanted to pursue something for myself, and you couldn't support me. You shut yourself off and left me isolated. You abandoned me on the ship."
"You chose to be alone. You pushed me away before I could realize what was happening."
"No, Harvey. That's not fair," she says, taking a deep breath to steady herself. "You're being incredibly cruel right now. You know damn well, I'd never let you fall. I feel so stupid because I believed you wouldn't let me fall either." She wipes away her tears. "You know, throughout our entire marriage, I never felt alone. I knew you would always be there. I knew that there would always be someone who cared about me, someone who would support and love me, and who would let me know that I was not alone in this crazy world. I thought you were that person. And it hurts so much to realize you can't be that person if things aren't exactly as you want them to be." She sniffles. "I'm sorry if I'm not what you expected, but if there's one thing I've done for you in these 20 years, it's trying, Harvey. I gave you everything I had, and then some more. And apparently, it hasn't been enough." Tears continue to stream down her face as she speaks. "I can't take this anymore, Harvey. You're hurting me too much. And I'm not sure divorce isn't an option for us anymore." She lets out those words that scare her to the core, but she really means them. Without waiting for his response, she turns and heads for the bedroom to get dressed hastily.
"What the hell are you doing now?" Harvey's voice is tinged with panic.
"You told me if I was tired, I knew where the door was. So, I'm leaving, Harvey," she replies, slipping on a pair of sneakers.
"No, Donna—" His plea is weak, and his emotional and physical exhaustion overwhelms him.
Donna doesn't reply. She finishes dressing quickly and rushes out, leaving behind the place she once thought was her favorite place in the world. Harvey begs her not to do it, but she won't stay there if he's not willing to talk like two adults. The pain she feels right now is enough; she doesn't need to add more.
Outside, she hides her tears behind dark sunglasses, walking briskly without a destination in mind. The cool wind against her face, coupled with the warmth of the sun, provides some solace. Yet her mind is still in turmoil. She doesn't know what to do. For the first time in too long, the formidable Donna Paulsen doesn't have a plan. She feels utterly lost, without a place to seek refuge. The thought of life without Harvey is unbearable. She doesn't want that. But realizing that Harvey had stopped fighting for her is devastating. The man she once thought would move mountains for her now seems indifferent to their crumbling relationship. The realization hits her like a freight train, leaving her breathless and adrift in a sea of uncertainty. How did they come to this point? And more importantly, can they find their way back to each other before it's too late?
The sound of the door slamming shut reverberates through the empty room, and Harvey's heart sinks like a stone. A choked, heartbreaking scream escapes his lips. His worst nightmares have just become reality; the mere possibility of Donna leaving him forever feels like a crushing blow, threatening to engulf him in darkness.
As he stands there, frozen in place, he feels a sense of utter powerlessness. The thought of Donna slipping away from his grasp fills him with a suffocating dread, leaving him paralyzed with fear and uncertainty. Despite his bravado and confidence in the courtroom, he finds himself helpless in the face of losing the woman he loves.
He had felt abandoned by her for a while now, and her slamming the door is the culmination of his fears.
The world around him starts to spin once more. A sharp pain sears through his chest, as if a weighty force is crushing him, and this agony now merges with the pain shooting down his left arm, reaching all the way to his fingertips, which he can barely move. Nausea churns his stomach, and his back stiffens with tension. His heart hammers in his chest, his breaths come in ragged gasps, and a clammy, unbearable sweat coats his body.
He can't recall ever experiencing a panic attack this severe. And he feels really scared.
Almost involuntarily, he collapses to his knees and then sprawls on the floor, struggling to focus on breathing, but without Donna, it's an impossible task.
God, he had been such a damn idiot. He had practically thrown Donna out of their own home. How could he have ever thought he could survive even a single day without her?
His trembling hand reaches for his cellphone, though he knows calling Donna now is futile. He feels he's teetering on the edge of an abyss, consumed by a panic unlike anything he's ever known. His clumsy fingers fumble for his wife's contact and dial her number, pleading with her to answer.
"Please, Donna," he chokes out.
Seeing the incoming call on her phone, Donna lets out a bitter laugh. He didn't pick up last night; why should she answer now? What could they possibly achieve over the phone at this moment? It would only devolve into another nonsensical, shouting match, and she lacks the strength to endure it.
"Please," he sobs, attempting once more, feeling as though his heart is on the brink of rupture.
Yet Donna rejects his call again. At least one of them must act maturely.
Harvey makes one last attempt to reach her, only to be met with silence. In defeat, he decides to dial 911. Something in his body is clearly amiss; the thunderous pounding of his heart against his ribcage can't be normal. The stabbing pain coursing through his left arm certainly isn't. As he lies trembling on the floor, he struggles to draw breath.
When emergency services answer, his cellphone slips from his grasp, and he barely manages to activate the speaker, clutching his left arm with his right hand, as if hoping to calm down his agony. Harvey describes his symptoms as best he can, feeling overwhelmed and lightheaded, and the response he receives on the other end is chilling: "Sir, it's highly probable that you're experiencing a heart attack. Do not attempt to move. An ambulance is en route."
His mind starts to drift off after hearing those words.
This is how his parents passed away. Was he going to suffer the same end?
The world around him dissolves into darkness.
Thank you so much for reading it! If you reached here I'd love to know what you think about this ;)