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The halls of Pearson Specter Litt were dim, with only a few office lights and the glow from the city outside to illuminate the space in the late hour. Most of the staff had gone home hours ago, but the few that remained were still celebrating.
“Okay, that’s probably enough champagne for you, light weight,” Harvey grinned as Mike stumbled over the leg of Rachel’s chair while trying to get seated in his own.
“Don’t worry,” the young woman smiled fondly at her fiancee, “I’ll get him home in one piece.”
“I was more worried for you,” Harvey insisted, “Kid gets damn annoying when he drinks.”
“Pshhhhh,” Mike blew air in his direction, “If I’m so bad, why are you dying to have me come back here to work for you? Huh? Huh?”
Harvey smirked, stretching back on his sofa and resting his arms along the backrest, “I said you were annoying, not that you were a bad lawyer.”
“Especially now that he is, you know, an actual lawyer,” Donna quipped as she returned from filling her own glass for the second, or maybe third time. Harvey had quit counting their drinks half an hour ago, deciding to just enjoy the night.
Mike had been admitted to the bar, he was coming back to work at PSL, Jessica had come through for them, and Harvey was finally set to take her place and get the firm he’d dedicated half his life to back on track. It was a good night, and they all deserved the much needed celebration.
“You guys are mean to me,” Mike pouted, shooting a playful glare at Donna as she sat next to Harvey on the sofa. Her leg was warm where it pressed against his and his eyes fell to the line of her beige dress, becoming transfixed on how the hem flirted with her knees, sliding ever so slightly up to reveal a flash of bare thigh as she crossed one leg over the other.
He forced his gaze back to his drunken subordinate, knowing from past experience that thoughts of his secretary's legs and alcohol consumption were a dangerous combination.
“We’re mean to you?” Harvey scoffed, watching as Mike laid out sideways in his chair with more than a little amusement, “Remind me how much of my money you’re walking out of here with tonight?”
“Fine,” Mike reached for his empty champagne flute on the ground next to the chair, “It’s a fair amount. But it’s for a good cause. Because some of us care about things like that.”
He frowned when he realized the drink was empty and Rachel shook her head with a laugh, taking it from him to go refill.
“What I care about,” Harvey continued, “Is that things are finally the way they are supposed to be, and you’re back where you belong.”
Mike’s lips broke into a sloppy grin, “Aww you missed me.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Donna’s elbow dug into his ribcage, “You might as well have.”
Harvey shot a look down at her that was meant to be reproachful, but the smile on her face brought out one of his own. This was the win they’d all needed. Mike and Rachel were happy, he was happy, Donna was…well, she seemed happy at that moment.
He tried and failed not to think about the tears that had been in her eyes not long ago, standing close to where they now sat, telling him she wanted more. His heart had frozen in his chest at her words, an odd sense of deja vu taking him back to the last time she’d been unhappy with their current arrangement. When she’d left him because of it.
His smile faltered.
Donna wanted more, and she couldn’t tell him what all that meant, but he knew it meant one thing…there was a chance he was going to lose her again. And it felt like he’d just gotten her back. Things were finally better, weren’t they? He wasn’t so sure anymore, and he didn’t know what to do about it.
Like some cruel mockery of this fact, Donna leaned back on the sofa, her neck coming to rest against his arm where it was still stretched out behind her. He could curve it in, just slightly, and he’d be holding her. His fingers twitched with the urge to do just that. He could blame it on the alcohol tomorrow.
And maybe he could brush the tips of his fingers through the red hair that cascaded over her shoulders. He’d thought about touching her hair again more often than he’d ever admit out loud. It had been so soft, the first and only time he’d held it in his fists, had watched it splay out over her white pillows.
“Right, Harvey? Harveeeey?”
He flinched a little at Mike’s raised tone, and noticed that his friends were looking at him expectedly, while he’d been lost in memories.
“What?”
Rachel chuckled, “Now who’s been drinking too much?”
Harvey rolled his eyes and Donna threw him a bone, “Mike said this feels like an old high school sleepover. Where you stay up too late drinking and play stupid games. He said you were probably too cool for stuff like that. ”
“We always played truth or dare at the sleepovers I went to,” Rachel answered before he could, getting lost in memories of her own, “You want to talk about mean.”
“Oh please,” Donna jumped in, leaning forward with animation, “You want brutal, try spin the bottle at a theater camp!”
Harvey tried not to linger on that particular thought, and was saved from it when Mike snorted loudly, “You went to theater camp?”
“You went to prison?” Donna clapped back with a fake gasp that he had to chuckle at.
Mike stuck his tongue out at her, “Well we certainly weren’t playing sleepover games in there. Unless you count fuck-marry-kill between the actresses on whatever show they played on Movie Night.”
“Fuck-marry-kill?” Harvey’s brow arched, “What the hell is that?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Donna asked.
Even Rachel seemed surprised, “It’s a game where three options are given and you have to choose which one you’d sleep with, which one you’d marry, and which one you’d kill.”
“You’re kidding,” Harvey frowned, “People do that for fun?”
Mike sat up in the chair, “How have you never played it?”
“Because I’m not a fifteen year old girl?” Harvey defended, and Mike started shaking his head, “Unbelievable. That’s it. We’re playing right now. This is not an experience a person can skip.”
Harvey stared at him, “You’re drunk.”
“It is sort of a right of passage,” Donna added, nudging him again, “Come on.”
Once again, Harvey found himself the center of attention with three sets of eyes waiting for him to answer and he rolled his eyes dramatically, “Fine, what the hell. But I'm breaking out the whiskey for this.”
The game started out simply enough, entertaining, but Harvey wouldn’t go as far to say that he’d been missing out on anything spectacular. He’d had to rank Charlie, Carole, and Iceman in Top Gun, and had laughed as Mike and Rachel argued over which “Ryan” was better to kill off between Reynolds and Gosling.
“I have to agree with Rachel,” Donna cut in, “Ryan Reynolds isn’t just good looking, he’s funny, too. Gosling gets the axe.”
“Okay, okay,” Mike brushed off the loss, “Fine Donna, then I’ve got a new one. Fuck, Marry, Kill; Pearson, Specter, Litt.”
Donna laughed, and Harvey’s interest piqued, “Seriously?”
“What?” Mike grinned at him, “Should be easy for you, Harvey. Marry Jessica, Kill Louis, and Fuck yourself-”
“Ha. Ha,” he took a swig of the liquor he’d been nursing.
“I’d marry Jessica,” Rachel agreed, “She’s a badass.
“She is,” Donna played along, and adjusted so that her weight fell even more into Harvey, “But she’s also used to being the HBIC. Not sure I’d want that in a marriage, but it can make for a fun time. So Fuck Jessica-”
Harvey nearly choked on his drink; he did cough harshly, and almost missed the rest.
“Marry Louis. Kill Harvey.”
“Excuse me,” the affrontement in his tone was genuine, despite Mike and Rachel breaking into a fit of laughter, “You’d kill me over Louis?”
Donna shrugged, reaching out to take his drink from him, “You’ve seen his bank account. And he already worships the ground I walk on. I could live quite comfortably as his wife.”
She drank from his glass, staring at him as she did so. Like there was something to challenge there.
She was joking. Harvey knew she was joking. But for some reason he couldn’t explain, the words “his wife” rubbed him wrong. The idea of Donna getting married, of belonging to someone in that way, another man to occupy her time and space and heart….he shifted to face her.
“You’re telling me I have to die because Louis has a bigger savings account?” he frowned.
Donna shook her head, “Oh Harvey, size isn’t the only thing that matters. He’s also taken me to the theater.”
“I’ve taken you to the theater,” he fired back, and immediately regretted it when he realized how accusatory he sounded.
Donna blinked, as if surprised by his defensiveness too, but recovered quickly.
“True. But have you declared me a goddess among women? A creature of beautiful perfection that shines like the sun through the darkness? No? Then sorry, Harvey, but-” she drew a finger across her throat in a slicing motion.
“Louis really said all that?” Rachel giggled.
“And plenty more,” Donna confirmed with a smile.
And Harvey wished like hell she didn’t look like a creature of beautiful perfection in the faded lighting. Those hazel eyes wide. The sweet flush of alcohol reddening her cheeks. Her damp, parted lips.
She was killing him now; had been for a long time. His eyes fell to his lap.
I want something more. And I’ve never said that out loud, but I can’t pretend that’s not true anymore.
All the humor was gone, then, and the chasm left in its wake was something real and cold and sobering.
Tonight, Donna was joking. One day, she wouldn’t be. She was beautiful, smart, funny, and compassionate. He’d accused her of being more than just a pretty face from the day they’d met and she’d proven it over and over again. Someday someone else was going to realize that, was going to put a very real ring on her finger, and they were going to take Donna away from him.
She said that she wanted more. Maybe more than what he and his desk could offer her.
She was going to get married one day, to someone. Maybe they’d decide to start a family, maybe they’d move away. Maybe they wouldn’t; and he’d see her every day and have to live with the knowledge that…that someone was more important to her than he was.
For twelve years, that hadn’t been the case. There was nothing she wouldn’t drop for him, no one she wouldn’t cancel on, no trip she wouldn’t postpone or dinner she wouldn’t reschedule when he needed her. Because she cared about him, cared about the work they did, and she’d always put him first.
Then the case against Liberty Rails had happened and something real and terrifying had come to light between them. And he’d fumbled it. Ran from whatever their admissions could have meant and he’d lost her. And it had killed him.
I love you, Harvey.
I’m leaving you.
I love you, Harvey.
I want something more.
I love you, Harvey.
I’m leaving you.
Something close to panic squeezed in his chest. It wasn’t like the attacks he’d suffered earlier in the year, but something deeper, something cataclysmic and defining. An impasse, a fleeting moment, a truth that was beating dead into his sternum, causing his heart to race as reality and his slight drunkenness swirled through his veins, screaming at him to do something. To stop the future he’d imagined from unfolding; a future where Donna was anything but his.
But…she wasn’t.
He experienced mental whiplash as his brain caught up to the panic. Donna was her own person, free to do whatever she wanted with whoever she pleased and if he was any kind of friend at all, he’d be happy for her, would support her, would want her to be happy more than he wanted to…wanted to what?
What did he want?
He lifted his eyes to find hers already on him, and suddenly he had his answer.
“It’s late. Rachel, you should get Mike home,” he said to the younger couple, not bothering to pull his eyes away from the woman beside him.
He was vaguely aware of a slurred protest from his friend, and he thinks Donna and Rachel shared a look that he had no interest in trying to interpret. Not when Donna’s body had stiffened beside him. Not when her eyes came back to his, searching for something in his gaze that he didn’t bother trying to hide. Not when he felt like he was a breath away from losing her for good.
He noticed when Rachel and Mike left, and when Donna moved from his side to go hold the door open for them and made sure it was shut behind them. Harvey stood as well, and noticed the way she paused before turning to face him.
A moment passed between them, the silence louder than any yelling match they’d ever had.
Donna broke it first.
“Are you gonna tell me where you were just now? Because it wasn’t here with us.”
“Are you leaving me?” The words were out before he could stop them and Donna blanched, “Harvey, what are you-"
“You said you wanted more,” he couldn’t stop them now, “And the last time you wanted more, you left me and I don’t want to lose you, Donna. I can’t go through it again, when right now, we’re-”
“Harvey, I’m not leaving you,” she said quickly, crossing the space between them and grabbed his arms. Her touch burned through his jacket.
“This firm is my family,” she clarified, “You are my family. But…it wasn’t my dream to be a legal secretary forever. You knew that.”
He did.
“What I said before just means that I have to figure out what I want my place here to be,” she said, “Who I want to be, and what more that I need.”
He could blame it on the alcohol tomorrow. “Does that more include us?”
Donna stilled and her hands fell from his arms, “Harvey, why would you ask me that?"
“I don’t want you to marry Louis.”
“Harvey-”
“I mean, I know you aren’t marrying Louis, I didn’t mean that you-what I’m trying to say-” he was fumbling again, unable to get the words right. His tongue had gone and taken a vacation and the harder he felt Donna’s bewilderment, the worse he faltered.
Until her hand was on his cheek, pulling his gaze back to hers.
“It was just a game, Harvey.”
Clarity found him then, as it so often fucking did when the surety of her stare was there to guide him to the right path.
He covered her hand with his, gripping her wrist, “I’m not playing.”
Another breath of silence in which her head crooked and he knew without a doubt that she was doing her Donna thing on him. Reading him better than anyone ever could, finding the words he didn’t know how to say.
“What if it did mean that I want more with you?” she asked after a moment; the question was hesitant but colored with the same hope that was chasing the panic from his throat, “Because the last time we almost went there, you said it would have been a mistake; after you told me that-”
“I love you.”
He said it both as a declaration and as a completion to her sentence. Donna’s eyes widened, much like they had the first night he’d told her as much, and though he felt just as terrified as he had then, the urge to sprint out the door after dropping the bomb was gone.
He’d lost her once because of his own cowardice. He refused to lose her again.
“It killed me when you went to work for Louis,” he admitted, forcing himself to hold her gaze, “And the way things between us changed after that was on me, because I couldn’t be honest with you; couldn’t tell you how much losing you wrecked me. I couldn’t let you go. Because you’re a part of me, Donna, you always have been.”
“You’re a part of me, too, Harvey,” she whispered as tears welled in her eyes. He lifted his thumb to brush one away when it crested on her cheek.
“If you want more professionally, I understand,” he stepped closer to her, bringing his other hand up until her face was being held in his palms, “I’ll support you however I can. But as for the rest…maybe ‘more’ isn't a mistake. Maybe it’s the only goddamn thing that makes sense, because I do love you and I can’t cut you out of me. I don’t want to lose you. And I don’t want to imagine a future where you- ”
His words died on Donna’s lips.
She threw herself against his chest, kissing him with a burning purpose that was going to haunt his dreams for months to come. Every inch of her body was pressed against his and his arms were wrapping around her waist before his brain had caught up to the fact that Donna was kissing him.
Donna was kissing him.
Holy shit.
He exhaled and sank into her, melting into the kiss with a release of the control he’d fought to hold for twelve years in her presence. Every buried thought, every half hidden desire, every flash of maybe or could-have-been or if-only they’d ever played off disintegrated.
Harvey kissed her back like she held the secrets to the universe and he could find the answers on her tongue. She kissed him like she just might offer them up.
“I love you, Harvey,” she pulled away to say, and the finality of it, the happiness, the hopefulness was so damn different to the last time he’d heard those words that his heart flipped in his chest.
This was real. Donna could be his.
He pressed his forehead against hers like they could meld into a single being; like she really could be part of him and him part of her; one being, one breath, one beating heart.
“Let me take you home,” he practically begged, “See if I can change your mind about wanting to kill me.”
She giggled softly, her whiskey tainted breath fanning his face, “Are you hoping to convince me to fuck you or marry you, then?”
Harvey smiled, feeling that both could be viable options for their future, but knew it was probably too soon to admit as much.
“Did you forget?” he said instead, recalling words she’d once spoken to him, “We’ve been married for the last seven years, Donna.”
Her face lit up with the most beautiful smile at the memory and she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, “Well I certainly didn’t forget a night with you and a can of whipped cream…but I’d be tempted to let you remind me, anyway.”
Harvey’s grin matched hers, “Fuck it is, then.”
Donna laughed and dragged his mouth back to hers, “Fuck it is.”