Work Text:
There are three truths in Donna's Harvey Specter centric universe that relate specifically to him.
one. He only has one pen.
It arrives on a Monday morning, in a small cardboard box, an armour of Sellotape encasing the billing information. Donna signs for the parcel, winking at the man before sliding it underneath the Caretan ledger as she moves into his office. He ignores her for a moment while she places it in front of him, holding the box out with one hand, eyebrow raised inquisitively.
He snatches it with a small smirk.
'Guess,' he says to her, all boyish bravado. 'Guess what happened.'
Donna rocks back on her heels before her lips start to curl up into a smile.
'We're moving floors, aren't we?'
He gets up and nods. 'Pack your desk, Paulsen. We're moving to the 54th.'
Donna sighs luxuriously and then motions to the package. 'So Mr Senior Partner, why did you wait a whole week to tell me?'
He looks up at her and then down to the rectangular box in front of him. 'This was a wishful, hopeful acquisition.'
Donna rolls her eyes and slices the sellotape with his letter opener.
'Mont blanc? Original? Limited edition? Oh Harvey, Jessica told you in advance, didn't she?'
He adjusts his tie, fidgets and then tries to retake the upper ground. 'You can have my old pen. It'll give your attempts to forge my signature more credibility.'
She smiles, notices the shift in his tone and finds herself leaning over the desk to grab the pen from his memo pad.
'Congratulations, Harvey.'
And perhaps it's the sincerity, but he looks up at her properly, leans back in his chair and nods.
two. He never wears a pair of socks twice.
'I don't think so,' She intones, staring at the box.
'Donna, it'll take fifteen minutes. Do it during your lunch break.'
'I'm your secretary, Harvey, not your lackey. Do it yourself. Or hire a maid. I have better things to do.'
He purses his lips. Tilts his head at her.
'I have to go to court this afternoon.'
She thinks there's probably a please in there somewhere but she's stubborn.
'Magic word?'
'Please.'
'Not a chance,' she replies, her lips betraying a smirk. She quirks her head and then looks down at his feet. 'What's wrong with the ones you have on?'
He lifts up a pant leg, chin tilted down like h know he has a point, has the upper hand, and gestures to the sock with his other hand like the article had personally insulted him.
'Wait, you wearing them yesterday,' she says, sighing, brows pressed together.
'Precisely.'
She fights for a while, angry at him for reducing her to this level and then recedes back to her desk.
three. Harvey doesn't like being challenged.
How many times had he threatened to fire her?
How many times had he gone through with it?
She felt she had a pretty good chance of calling his bluff.
'That's not the point, Donna. I thought we went through this. After everything, look, I just. You should go. Take the afternoon, I'll tell Jessica you'll be taking personal leave for the rest of the week.'
She didn't even have the ability to move, glued against the door frame, the glass edge pressed uncomfortably into her forearm as she hung there, staring at his reflection in the mirror.
'You want me to-'
'Don't make me say it again.'
It was the glass, she whispered to herself, once she was in the elevator, and the air conditioning, she repeated like a chant, that made me cry.
Stockinged feet and not-so waterproof makeup had been greeted only by his deflective answering machine message.
'What is between me and Hardman is between me and Hardman. Don't ever presume to know better. Goodnight.'
miscellaneous. - the things she knows but wishes she didn't
It all started with the pen, really, ended with it too in a way. That stupid pen that still sits on her desk even now so many years later with a different ink colour to the one it started with but all the same otherwise. She didn't know what it meant, didn't know what any of the little bit of Harvey actually taught her, didn't connect the pieces of a search for hidden meanings until much later.
That was why, 4 years later when she sat, looking at the missing memo, noticing the ink that wasn't hers, she realised that it didn't just mean Harvey was a stickler for Mont Blanc. It meant Harvey didn't like change nor recycling. This was a lesson in moving on to greener pastures when the offer was there. Loyal, yes, to a fault, but to her? No. Her heart had contracted violently, clenched up around her throat until she was breathing in pure carbon, recycling her breaths, couldn't bear to move an inch. He had got her back to ensure the peace, to ensure change remained at bay. To ensure she was still loyal to him
Her fingers catch over the pen as she neatly writes down the message for him on yellow legal paper, her mouth tight.
'This is Zoe, just tell Harvey that-'
Dutifully, loyally, Donna writes and she feels a bit like she's signing him away, all wonderfully bitter with his old pen between her fingers.
You'll have your hands full with her, she berates herself with the memory, caustically lets it hurt her a little bit because it makes what she feels for him a little more real and a little less like a middle school fantasy she created in her head. Zoe, zoe, zoe. Stupid, pretty, perfect Zoe. The realisation that he did it behind her back like he was shielding her from the truth makes it all a little too brightly lit and real. Like he phoned when she was out so that when she found out it would seem like he was doing it with dignity. All it feels is cheap and tacky, a simple way to remind her that she isn't what he was looking for. Not the right fit.
She always imagined her and Harvey were sort of those 'epic loves', the ones that take 6 seasons, 3 prequels and 9 insignificant love interests to bring together. The sort of couples that are so wrong and so right for each other at the same time. She never imagined they were in any way a sort of grand design of the universe, but she did see their equality and camaraderie as a union that would last and fruition into something more.
Now all she sees is Harvey dutifully cutting her out of his personal life to ensure he doesn't have to deal with the fallout of he crush.
Pathetic.
It all comes to her as she punctures the final full stop on Zoe's voicemail recitation into the paper, leaving an inky blue smudge on the lined yellow paper. Accusatory and sad all at the same time You should have known. It was so obvious
The socks, the pen, the boy.
Or perhaps the man.
Harvey had constructed the scenario to ensure that Donna remained his secretary. Because they had tried once and leftovers and recycling were not a thing Harvey indulged in. Zoe was superfluous (perhaps she would mean more, but Donna was not that type of masochistic to begin to dissect the relationship).
She dropped the pen, flexing her fingers out, palms against the desk, her forearms tensed so hard she was shaking. After a moment, she stilled, stoic, her eyes focused on the paper before her before she rose, adjusted her skirt, shimmied until it sat just above her knees and pushed her hair off her shoulders. Not a hair out of place.
She strode to his office, opened the door and leaned against the glass, hoped the ache would comfort with the familiarity of being put down. At least, in this instance, with a yellow legal pad and a ledger in her hand (she would make up a query to throw Harvey off), it was of her own bidding.
She found him there, looking just as put together and yet pulled apart as she felt and smiled, just a little. Even if she did know everything about him, even if she did sacrifice everything for him, she knew one thing. One thing she could laud over him. Donna Paulsen was better at lying.