Fourteen years ago

It was one of those evenings that could have changed everything, but instead, everything went wrong.

It was a Friday night and the employees of the New York County DA's office were saying their goodbyes for the weekend. Meanwhile, Harvey was still at his desk swamped with a load of casework. He was itching to get out of that depressing office and find himself a gorgeous blonde or brunette for the night, but the voice in the back of his mind kept reminding him that you didn't get to be head litigator by clocking out promptly at 5 pm.

He notices Donna outside his office chatting to one of the other secretaries and his eyes are drawn by how animated and excited she looks. He feels a surge of fondness as the girl signals to Donna to head home and the redhead just shakes her head and motions back toward his office. She always wants to stay until he's done for the day. And sometimes it makes him wonder whether her reasons for doing it were professional or personal. Either way, he's grateful, and his face begins to relax into a smile as Donna starts heading toward him.

"Hey," she greets as she arrives in the doorway. "Anything else I can help you with?"

"Just drowning in discovery for the Robertson case." He hesitates for a moment, then decides to go for it. "You feel like ordering in and making an evening of it?" Lately, she'd been in such a good mood at work that he'd started to ponder if it was something more than enthusiasm for her secretarial duties.

Her brow instantly furrows with regret. "I would love to help, Harvey, I really would, it's just that…"

"You've got plans." He shrugs, trying to seem unbothered. "Don't worry about it, Donna."

"I can take a few boxes home and—"

"No, really. Go enjoy your evening. Any special plans?" He doesn't really want to hear all about her social calendar, but it seems like the polite thing to say.

"Oh, um. Chad got us tickets to the Carmen gala at the Met. It's amazing, it's been sold out for months, and he got us box seats! I have no idea how he did it."

She's gushing enthusiastically and he can't help but feel a twinge of annoyance as he realizes that her recent good mood had nothing to do with him. What kind of a name was Chad, anyway? Sounds like some douchey Wall Street asshole.

"He must be well-connected," he says with disinterest, returning his attention to the file in front of him.

"Oh he is, he works on Wall Street and he has some super VIP clients."

Harvey snorts to himself. Figures. He may not have super VIP clients yet, but he's pretty goddamn sure that someday his client roster will put Mr. Wall Street to shame.

"Well. That's great. Have a good time, Donna."

"Thanks, Harvey. I really appreciate it. If there's nothing else you need I'm going to go get changed, he'll be here any second."

Great. Not only does he have to hear all about Wall Street Bro, he has to meet him and get introduced and smile and probably shake his hand. He watches her grab her tote bag from under her desk and head for the washroom.

Digging into his stack of papers, he tries to re-immerse himself in his work. I could get box seats, he grumbles to himself. What, like it's hard?

Ten minutes later he senses movement outside his office and looks up to see her wearing a slinky red dress, her hair pulled back over one shoulder and her beauty enhanced with just a touch of extra make-up. He swallows instinctively. She's checking her phone, looking lost in thought and suddenly she glances over and catches him staring. He quickly busies himself with a folder but within seconds she's back in his doorway.

"Did Chad come in while I was gone?"

He ignores the question, far too preoccupied with the expanse of pale, freckled skin in front of him, the curves and edges of her shoulders and neck and cleavage faintly dazzling him. "You look…nice," he finishes lamely.

"Oh…thanks, Harvey. But did you see him?"

Irritated, he looks down at his work. "No. I didn't."

She takes a seat in one of the chairs opposite him and grabs a folder. "I guess I can help you while I wait."

After ten minutes of poring over documents she starts to check her phone obsessively. Harvey watches her intently, trying to remember if she'd ever been this nervous for a date. Then he comes to the realization that it might be the lack of a date making her nervous, and feels a rush of empathy for her.

"I'm sure he'll be here."

Her cheeks start to blush and she says quietly, "I don't think so."

The sympathy transforms into anger upon hearing the sadness in her voice. "Donna, if that asshole stood you up, he doesn't deserve your tears. You should go without him. Don't let him ruin something you've been looking forward to." The irony was not lost on him that he'd stood someone up just last weekend (what were you supposed to do when you encounter an even more gorgeous woman on the way to a date?). But this is Donna, and she's just different.

"I can't," she says in a small voice, looking stricken. "He has the tickets." She quickly averts her gaze and jumps up. "This is stupid, I—I'll just get changed again and I can stay and help you with your work."

Before he can object and tell her to take the night off, she's turned on her heel and hurried out of his office.

He's watching her retreating form when he comes up with an idea, deciding that he's not going to let some jerk ruin her evening because she doesn't deserve that. So he grabs his phone and makes a call to someone whose existence he'd really hoped he could forget for the next two years.

His old frenemy from Gordon Schmidt Van Dyke answers on the first ring. "What's up, dickhead?"

Harvey chuckles at the overly aggressive greeting. "Nice to talk to you too, Louis."

"No seriously, why are you calling me? You're not due back here for another two years, six months, and three days. You better not be—"

"Relax, Louis. I'm staying put. I just need a favor."

"And why would I—"

"Look, it's not for me okay? It's for my…secretary. She was supposed to go to some big opera thing tonight and her date stood her up, so I need to get tickets. You like that stuff, right?"

"Carmen? At the Met? It's been sold out for months, dumbass. I got the last two tickets an hour after they went on sale. Would have been earlier, but that idiotic judge decided to move up my hearing—"

"Okay, I get it," Harvey cuts him off before his diatribe can get into full swing. "So, you have two tickets? Who are you going with?"

"Um…no one. What? I didn't say anything—" Louis stutters.

"But you just said—"

"If you must know, I like to buy an extra ticket on my right, okay? Just as a precaution."

"So…it's available."

"It…could be. For the right price."

"Okay, out with it. What do you want for it?"

There's a pause on the line and he rolls his eyes imagining all the ridiculous requests Louis is sure to come up with.

"Delay your arrival by a year."

"Louis, come on—"

"Fine. I'm not unreasonable. Six months."

"Two months," Harvey counters.

"Three months and not a day less."

"You've got yourself a deal," Harvey says with satisfaction.

There's a pause and he wonders for a second if Louis has hung up on him. "Seriously, Harvey, you're going to change your career plans to get your secretary an opera ticket?"

It hadn't seemed like a weird thing to do until he heard it out loud. "I guess."

"Oh I get it, you're like in love with her or something," Louis says with a laugh that grates at Harvey's nerves.

"Say that again and the deal's off," he snaps. "That's not—" he says with exasperation, "I just…want to make her happy."

The line goes quiet again.

"You know what Harvey…you should take both tickets. It's really nice what you're doing."

He doesn't care for opera, but he cares for her. So the idea doesn't seem so unpleasant, really. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, it's fine. You know, Bruno hasn't been to the spa in ages, so I've really been slacking on my parenting responsibilities lately, and—"

"Who the hell is Bruno?"

"My kitten. Obviously."

"Oookay, Louis. Well, thanks. I owe you one."

"You better believe I'm going to remember that. Three months, not a day less! You can pick them up at the box office under my name."

He hangs up in satisfaction and looks around the office; Donna doesn't seem to have reappeared. After two more quick calls to his suit guy and a nearby florist, his heart starts to beat faster with excitement as he imagines the look on her face when he tells her that she'll be going to Carmen after all.

She finally emerges from the corridor, back in her blouse and skirt with her makeup just a touch smeared. A knot forms in his stomach at the thought that she might have been crying.

"Hey, Donna, guess what—"

She spins around but it's in the direction of the door, not his office. Staring at the entrance way, her whole face lights up, and then she's rushing excitedly toward the exit.

And then he hears the voice of a man he can only assume is Wall Street Bro. "Babe, I'm so sorry! My car broke down and my phone died and I tried to—"

"Don't worry about it!" she exclaims. "You're here now, we only missed dinner. I'll just get changed and—"

"You don't need to get changed, baby, you already look beautiful."

They move into sight and Donna pulls him in for a kiss. He was obnoxiously tall and well-built, just like the last guy she'd dated, leaving him to contemplate whether she had a type. Harvey watches the guy's hands sliding all over her ass. Get a room, he thinks as he rolls his eyes, ignoring the fact that he would probably behave no better if he was in that guy's shoes. She giggles and blushes and then they're stumbling through the door and they're gone.

He thinks to himself, a bit smugly, that at least he's the only one who got to see her in the red dress.

He's the only one left in the office now and he sighs and slouches back into his chair, unable to stop imagining what might have been if Wall Street Bro hadn't shown up. For a moment, he considers giving the tickets back to Louis, but he definitely couldn't stand the sense of smugness he would surely have at the fact that Harvey's plans hadn't worked out. With the image of Creepy Chad's hands all over Donna replaying in his mind, he comes up with a better idea.

He scrolls through his contact list, grimacing or smiling at the various entries. Selecting a name haphazardly, he hits the call button.

Donna is still giddy with excitement over the spectacle of the first half as they make their way out of the hall for intermission. Although she was enjoying the show immensely, she had to admit that Chad was starting to bore her with his endless talk of his financial conquests.

When they reach the lobby she finally gets desperate and interrupts his neverending story about a million dollar trade he'd made earlier that day. "Hey, Chad? Would you mind getting us some drinks? I'd love a glass of wine."

"Sure, babe, I'll be right back." He gives her a quick kiss and heads off in the direction of the bar.

As her eyes drift over the well-dressed crowd, her heart stops when she observes a familiar face moving leisurely toward her.

"Harvey?! What the hell are you doing here?" Donna exclaims, feeling just as rattled as if she'd seen a ghost.

"What?" he grins, amused by her exaggerated reaction. "Can't a guy enjoy some opera every now and then?"

"He can," she says slowly, still in disbelief, "but you…you've never shown any interest when I talk about the opera. And you didn't even mention it earlier when I told you I was coming!"

He shrugs. "Well, I like to keep it low-key. You know, doesn't really fit in with the whole killer attorney thing."

"Right…" she manages, still feeling mildly uncomfortable about his presence. For the first time, she allows her gaze to drift downward across the sharp lines of his tux jacket that was tailored to perfection. She had never seen him at a formal event before, and she had to admit that her admiration of him was currently blurring the lines between professional and personal.

"So, where's Chad?" he inquires.

"Getting drinks."

Harvey nods and says nothing, but subtly purses his lips. She knows him well enough by now that she can tell he's got something on his mind. "What's that look for?"

He shrugs. "I don't know. I guess I just never pictured you with a guy like that."

"Oh, is that so?" She brings a hand to her hip, attempting to mask her nervousness with sass. "If you're such an expert, then what kind of guy should I be with?"

"Someone sophisticated and charming. Handsome, but not vain. Confident, but not an asshole."

"That rules you out then," she says jokingly. Her mind was racing trying to figure out where he was going with this. Sure, their banter often reached the point of innuendo. But she'd never taken it as a indication of interest in anything more than casual sex on his part.

"I'd also suggest someone who doesn't show up an hour late, but always comes right on schedule." He raises his eyebrows suggestively.

"Harvey…I'm on a date," she says with exasperation at his characteristically inappropriate flirting.

"I know, and I'm enjoying it immensely."

"You're an idiot."

"Where's your date, then?" he says lightly, but his face falls as he glances toward the bar.

Turning her head to look in the same direction, she mutters, "Seriously, how long does it take to get drinks?" Her cheeks flush with embarrassment when she spies her date sitting at the bar chatting up the woman next to him, his hand sliding assuredly up her thigh. "Oh."

Before she has a moment to process, a blonde girl in a far too revealing dress for the Met glides up to Harvey and takes his arm. "There you are," she says, smiling adoringly at him.

Once again, Donna's thrown off balance, by the fact that Harvey is not only at the opera, but also brought a woman here on a date. Was he really more romantic than he let on? "Oh, I'm sorry—Harvey, why don't you introduce us?"

A flicker of panic passes over Harvey's face when his date looks up at him expectantly. "Right, um, this is my assistant, Donna, and Donna, this is, uhh…Kacey."

"Karly!" The blonde stares at him, mortified, then yanks her arm out of his. "Let me get this straight, you randomly ask for a last-minute date when you haven't called me in a month, and then you can't even remember my name? Why the hell am I even here, Harvey?"

Donna watches the scene unfold with dread. When Harvey fails to provide any sort of explanation other than a faint shrug, Karly storms off, without a single glance backward. Horrified by the fact that he seems completely unbothered by this development, all the pieces suddenly fall into place and Donna knows exactly how this evening came to be.

She glares at Harvey in fury, feeling all of her pent up embarrassment and anxiety from this disaster of an evening rise to the surface. Chad's late arrival, the fact that he had abandoned her for some random woman at the bar, and most of all, the fact that her boss had crashed her date on a whim. "Did you come here to spy on me?" she fumes.

"No! That's not…I—" he stammers, taken off guard by the accusation.

"You just decided to get tickets to the same opera after you heard I was going, and torment some innocent woman by bringing her here on a fake date." She briefly wonders how he had possibly managed to find tickets at the last minute when they'd been sold out for months, but that was the least of her worries right now.

"Okay, yes, I got them tonight, but—"

She cuts him off, having no patience for whatever weak excuse or justification he might come up with. "I can't believe I even considered…" The sentence stays unfinished, even in her head. Absolutely no good could come of dreaming about a man so incapable of empathy.

"Considered what?" he prompts, his eyes wide with anticipation.

"Nothing," she hisses. "You can find someone else to stalk now, because I'm leaving."

The thought of missing the second half upset her, but the idea of seeing his arrogant face for one second longer upsets her more, so she chooses the route toward the exit.

He doesn't go after her.

But a tiny part of her wishes he did, and that annoys her the most of all.

Present day

It had been a week of exhausting, sixteen-hour days, and Donna collapses into Harvey's arms as soon as he meets her at his door.

After a few moments of breathing each other in, he pulls back and places a soft kiss on her forehead. "Hey, you okay?"

"Yes, just tired. Can't wait to curl up on the couch with you and a glass of wine." Kicking off her heels, she reaches for his hand and follows him into the living room.

"That sounds perfect for tonight. What do you think about something a bit more sophisticated for tomorrow evening?" He turns to face her and extracts an envelope from his jacket pocket.

"What's this for?"

"Just thought you deserved a night out, after everything you've gone through with Faye," he says with a soft smile, hands encircling her waist and leading her onto the couch.

She opens the envelope and does a double take. "Carmen? The Met? You don't like opera," she eyes him suspiciously.

He grins, never getting tired of surprising her even after all these years. "But I like you."

"Just 'like' me?" she teases, pulling him close enough to rest her head on his shoulder.

"I suppose 'love' also works."

"Works for me too," she says softly with a squeeze of his hand. Although it wasn't the first time they shared that four letter word, and certainly wouldn't be the last, it was no less emotional to hear him say it now that she knew he meant it in every way possible. "And thank you for being so thoughtful, Harvey. I always dreamed about going to the opera with you someday."

"Really?"

"I know, it doesn't make sense, because you don't even like it. I think I just wanted a do-over after our first time at the Met. Do you remember, when you stalked me at the opera?" She laughs at the memory, the anger having faded into mild amusement over the years. "I was pissed at you for a week."

"Oh, I remember," he chuckles. "I was surprised you even turned up for work the next day."

"Please, Harvey, I'm a professional," she says, bringing her hand to her chest in mock offence.

"I know you are. And I'm sorry that it didn't work out the way I intended it to. I know it was ages ago, but I never really apologized, I just waited for you to get over it."

"How exactly were you intending it to go?"

"Well…in my scenario there were no dates."

"What do you mean?" She sits up and angles her body to face him, full of curiosity about his ambiguous statement.

"The tickets were for you. Us."

"What?"

"When you thought that asshole date of yours wasn't coming. You were upset, and I wanted to do something to cheer you up, so I made some calls and got tickets. It wasn't supposed to happen like that, but yeah, I was going to come with you."

She stares at him in shock. "I can't believe you did that," she whispers. Her eyes fill with tears as her heart is overcome with love for this man who'd cared for her all these years, even before he knew quite how to express his feelings or even understand them himself.

"Yeah, well." He looks down shyly but the corner of his mouth curves into a pleased smile. "I just wanted to make you happy."

She takes his face in her hands and kisses him gently, their lips lingering slightly apart before she kisses him again, this time all desire and passion. "You make me happier than I ever thought possible, Harvey."

It's his turn to look overwhelmed as he gazes at her, taking in her smile and her tears and her emotions that he was feeling just as strongly as she was. Fingers stroke her hair as he loses himself in her. "I didn't know…that I could make someone happy like that. I mean…I was the guy who forgot girls' names and never called them back. But with you…"

"It's different?"

He nods. "Yes. Always."

She's so overcome with emotion that she suddenly feels the need to lighten the situation, still not completely used to the open and vulnerable Harvey that was sitting in front of her. "Well, we'll see if you still remember my name at the end of the night. You don't have a great track record at the Met, you know."

"Okay, Debbie."

She bursts into laughter and swats at his chest. "Watch it mister, or I just might find myself another date…"

"I don't think so," he says confidently, leaning back with his hands behind his head.

"Why's that?"

"Because you know you want to see me in a tux again."

Donna bites her lip at the mental image enticing her. She could never resist his mischievous grin. "Guilty as charged."

"Sentence: one date with Harvey Specter."

"What a pleasurable punishment." Standing up, she reaches for his tie and gives it a playful tug.

Taking the hint, he gets up and leans in to whisper in her ear. "That is one of my specialties."

"Oh, I know," she smirks, taking his hand and leading him to the bedroom. "But tonight, Mr Specter…you've earned some of mine."

.

.

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A/N: Thank you so much for reading! Once again I've been inspired by Friends—hope you enjoyed my take on "The One with the Prom Video" with a Darvey twist :) This fic is for Lila, who's been encouraging and inspiring me (and occasionally harassing me) since the days I was just some random writer on FF. I'm so grateful for your support, and I hope I did your jealous Harvey dreams justice!

And thanks to Wika for reading whatever I throw at her, night or day. You give me so much confidence in my work and I couldn't do it without you xx