Fic - Veracity (Donna/Harvey) pg, 1/1

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Title: Veracity 
Summary: “I’m not in love with him,” she says, trying out the words. 
Rating: pg 
Author's Notes: 582 words. Set pre-series. This is my first time writing Jessica in any capacity, so con-crit is welcome and appreciated. All mistakes are mine. These characters, however, are not. 

“You’re in love with him.”

It is Jessica who says it first, of course, words phrased as a statement, not a question. She is, after all, the only person who could get away with such a thing. It is years before the trial run. Years before the foundation of Donna and Harvey’s relationship turns faulty, breaking under the weight of unintentional betrayal and distrust.

They are in the copy room, late at night. A case is going to trial and the whole firm is preparing for it; heels click outside the cracked door, associates working themselves into hysteria out in the bullpen. Donna doesn’t need to be near him to know that Harvey is working through it all – cool and calm, the picture of control. It’s who he is. She is digging through boxes for precedence and Jessica is with her because Jessica can be wherever Jessica wants to be.

They are friends sometimes, in the minutes that stretch between them when no one is there to see, those moments when Harvey isn’t around to serve as the undercurrent between them.

Still, the shock at her words catches Donna off guard, the incredulous laughter bubbling thickly in the back of her throat. It’s a reflex, habit almost, and it is so thick, so heavy that she nearly chokes on it, her ears tinting pink as she avoids eye contact. It isn’t the first time people have wondered, have phrased those exact words with slight variation but similar intent, but it is the first time anyone has dared to be so frank with her. It is the first time anyone has dared to look her in the eye while the words fall out of their mouth. Even then, even during what could still be considered their modest beginning, Donna was a force to be reckoned with, to be feared.

There is a beer bottle between Donna’s hands, and her legs swing as she perches herself on the edge of the desk, fingers picking at the soggy and fading label sticking to the glass. Jessica watches, face a mask of neutrality, the smallest of smiles curling at the corner of her mouth. Donna envies it a little – the ease at which Jessica walks through life knowing all the answers, the confidence with which she carries herself. Donna likes Jessica. Donna respects Jessica. Donna may also be just a tad bit afraid of Jessica.

She is, naturally, the first to look away.

“He’s my boss,” she says, chin pointed defiantly. She is careful, always, to make that distinction first, the words serving as her default, her initial defense. “He is my friend. He’s Harvey.” There is a smile, small and unsure, uncharacteristic as it strains Donna’s cheeks. The beer sweats all over her fingers. “Besides. Have you met him?”

Jessica tips her head back to laugh, shoulders shaking with the movement, and when she sobers, her eyes return to scanning the contents of the box in front of her, fingers idly thumbing through the file labels. She finds what she is looking for within seconds, and Donna decides to blame the victorious smile that spreads across the other woman’s mouth on that instead of something else entirely.

“That wasn’t a no.”

Donna shakes her head, evens her gaze with Jessica’s. “I’m not in love with him,” she says, trying out the words. They taste unnatural as they fall out of her mouth.

“Okay.”

(It’s not a lie then. This is an important thing to note.)

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