A/N: NEXT SUMMER? Are you freakin' kidding me? I might as well enter hibernation or something. What's the point of all the days in between now and NEXT SUMMER? *deep breath* Okay, fine. So if I have to go on living as if a giant piece of my week hasn't been removed and left me hemorrhaging SuitsLove on the floor, I'm going to start posting the first of at least two multi-chap fics I've been writing in my brain and on my phone for the past couple of days. I hope you guys like...

Disclaimer: I don't own Suits or Placebo...but you should really listen to this song.

Chapter One - You Wanna Know? Know That It Doesn't Hurt Me

"Donna have you seen-"

Without looking up the redhead handed Harvey his misplaced cell phone.

"You have a missed call from your masseuse and Theresa said to tell you they just got in the new Mercedes you've been wanting to try."

Harvey grinned down at his secretary, scrolling through his phone's text messages.

"I love you."

"I know."

Harvey turned and walked down the hall towards Mike's cubical, a couple of thin files under one arm and eyes glued to his cell phone.

"Mike I have the-" Harvey stopped, midway through the motion of tossing a file onto Mike's desk.

There was someone in Mike's cubicle.

And it wasn't Mike.

"Mike's not here right now. I was told I could wait for him here."

The woman looked up at him with a pleasant smile and sparkling blue eyes. They were sharp too, like she knew everything that was about to happen and was waiting for someone else to catch on, a trait Harvey wouldn't necessarily have expected from a woman her age.

"You were, were you? And who told you that?" Harvey asked, hoping to sound more curious than skeptical.

The woman raised a white eyebrow at him and he guessed that he hadn't quite succeeded.

"That nice young woman at the front desk. I've found that, once you get to be my age, there's very little people wont let you do." She winked and Harvey found himself smiling. She had spunk for an eighty-something year old.

He extended his hand, "Harvey Specter."

The woman's face split into a smile and she lifted her hand to shake his, the weak grip giving Harvey the first true indication of her age. When he looked closer he could see the exhaustion written plainly on her face and the way she almost sagged in Mike's chair.

"So you're Harvey. Mike has told me a lot about you."

"Only the good things are true."

"Now why do I find that hard to believe?" She gave him a look that would have made a lesser man blush with a hint of shame but Harvey just shifted on his feet.

"And your name?"

"Mike hasn't mentioned it?"

"He usually just calls you grandma," Harvey responded, having guessed at the woman's identity. The picture of her on Mike's desk might have helped as well, even if it was at least twenty years old.

She nodded approvingly, "Then you can too."

Harvey raised an eyebrow in amusement. He folded his arms to lean on the small wall surrounding Mike's desk.

"You should have been a lawyer," he said, smiling.

The older woman's smile reminded him of Mona Lisa.

"I was a housewife, a mother of three children and a grandson, Mr. Specter. There were days when I felt like one."

Harvey smiled; she certainly explained where Mike got some of his spunk.

He leaned his head down toward her a bit, intending to continue the conversation when he heard Mike's voice behind them.

"Grandma? What are you doing here?"

Mike approached them from the direction of the file room balancing an impressive stack of files in both arms and looking more confused than Harvey had ever seen.

"Mike, there you are," she said, attempting to pull herself up from the computer chair.

Harvey's eyes widened, seeing the way the older woman's muscles shook with the effort of moving and Mike scrambled over to her, dumping the files on his desk and ignoring the few that slipped to the floor in order to lend a helping hand to the woman.

"God, grandma, how did you even get here? Does nurse Robinson know you're here?" he asked, helping her sit back down in the chair when her knees started to give out, and then muttered to himself, "Clearly I'm overpaying for that supposed 24 hour car facility."

"Oh Michael don't fuss," the woman grumbled, smoothing out her skirt to cover her shaking hands. "And the facility is fine. You just underestimate what I am capable of when I put my mind to it."

Mike huffed and rubbed a hand over his face.

"What are you doing here grandma?" he repeated, not sounding nearly as patient as he wanted to and only too aware of Harvey's calculating, narrowed stare boring into them both.

She looked up at him then, her blue eyes as clear as they had been when she was her grandson's age.

"I need to talk to you Mike," she said, the severity in her voice bringing the young man up short.

Mike folded her hands up within his and gave them a gentle squeeze.

"What is it grandma?"

Harvey could see the worry playing in the younger man's eyes and thought to himself, not for the first time, that the kid should work on not being so easy to read.

"I," she cut herself off when a couple associates walked by chatting and then she glanced at Harvey, "privately."

Mike's brow furrowed and he worked to cover his worry with a brave smile.

"Sure, um," he blinked, at a loss of where they could go in the middle of the workday.

"My office," Harvey supplied, depositing the files he'd brought with them on Mike's already toppling pile and then turning to walk back the way he'd come.

"Harvey," Mike stood, looking relieved and still a bit alarmed, "are you sure?"

Harvey didn't even turn around.

"Just hurry up before I change my mind."

It took Mike and his grandmother a bit longer than Harvey would have liked to get down the hall to Harvey's office. The woman was sharp as a tack in the mind, but when attempting to walk Harvey could see even better than when she'd been sitting how her body betrayed her age. Harvey couldn't remember anyone who'd embodied the word 'frail' so well before.

After they'd made it to the office Mike led her over to the couch.

"You need anything Mrs. Ross?" Harvey asked, hands in his pockets and heading toward the door. Mike whirled around, looking at him like he'd grown another head.

"What?" Harvey snapped, the charm and smile he'd directed at the older woman completely forgotten.

"You don't even offer clients water! You always make me do it."

Harvey ignored this and looked back at Mike's grandmother, who simply waved her hand dismissively.

"No thank you and I promise we'll be out of your hair quickly."

Harvey shook his head, "don't worry about it Mrs.-"

The woman raised an eyebrow and Harvey smirked.

"I mean 'grandma'." Harvey smiled and turned toward the door, "Mike if you don't close your mouth you'll catch flies."

Outside his office Harvey paused at Donna's desk, pretending to review some mail she handed him.

Donna caught his eye and he looked down at her finger, hovering over the intercom button. She raised her eyebrows in question.

Harvey thought a moment and glanced behind them into the office. Mike looked worried and young, kneeling in front of his grandmother the way he had been at his cubical. His earnest blue eyes stared up at her like she was his whole world and it occurred to Harvey that, for a long time, she probably had been.

He nodded and Donna pressed the button, opening the link between her intercom and the one on his desk. For a moment they heard nothing and then Mike's voice came quietly through the speakers, sounding indignant.

"I can't believe you snuck out of the nursing home! What would I have done if something had happened to you? Do you have any idea-" Mike was cut off mid lecture by Grandma Ross' voice.

"I had to talk to you Micheal,"she said calmly.

Mike hung his head, shaking it before rubbing both hands roughly across his face.

"I understand grandma but couldn't it have waited?" Mike said with forced patience.

Harvey frowned, no longer even bothering to attempt to look like he wasn't watching the pair of people inside his office.

Mike was a genius in many ways, but reading people wasn't one of them. Harvey wasn't even in the same room and he could tell Grandma Ross had something important to say, something that couldn't wait. But all Mike could see was that he was being kept away from work. And while the workaholic in Harvey was almost proud of that, the man in him wanted to smack his young associate on the back of the head.

The older woman sighed and clasped her bony hands tightly in her lap.

"The US Marshalls called."

Mike's head snapped up and Harvey narrowed his eyes.

For several long moments silence was all that came across the intercom, and then Mike's voice again, suddenly quiet and ragged.

"When?"

"This morning."

If Mike's eyes were any wider Harvey worried they would leap right out of his head.

"His case is up for appeal." the woman continued.

Mike paled considerably and got up, pacing away from the couch a bit to look outside.

"Why-" his voice came out strangled and Harvey watched him bend over to put his hands on his knees and take a few deep breaths before trying to continue. "Why would they...how..."

Grandma Ross took a deep breath, scooting forward slightly on the couch like she wanted to go to her clearly distraught grandson, but was unable to do so.

"You remember Mike. Mr. Nevins said this could happen. Once all the ruckus from the trial died down, he could conceivably try and appeal the whole-"

"What is there to appeal?" Mike whirled around, his entire face red and his grandmother drew back at the violence of his reaction, startled.

Briefly, Mike closed his eyes, taking a deep breath before crossing back over to the couch and resuming his kneeling position in front of his grandmother.

"I'm sorry grandma. I-"

"Shh," she whispered back, carding her hand through his hair before resting them both on his cheeks. "I know."

Mike nodded and Harvey found he was holding his breath. They both just sounded so broken.

"Harvey?"

Donna's voice cut quietly through the silence and Harvey looked over to see the redhead had switched off the intercom. "Lora just IM'd me from the front desk. She says there's someone here for Mike's grandma."

Harvey nodded and sure enough, he spotted a young woman in scrubs coming toward them rolling an empty wheelchair in front of her.

He started to move toward the office, but Donna's voice stopped him.

"Harvey, what do you think..." she trailed off, looking more concerned than Harvey had ever seen her. Of course, she liked Mike. And for Donna, that was saying something.

Harvey just shook his head, taking a deep breath and needlessly straightening his tie.

"I don't know." And he wasn't yet sure how he felt about that.

Harvey opened the door to his office and both of the people inside looked up at him, but their blue eyes seemed a million miles away.

Before Harvey could say anything, Mike spotted the woman and the wheelchair heading toward the office.

"Grandma, Nurse Fales is here for you."

The older woman nodded, but never took her eyes off her grandson.

"Mike are you going to be alright?"

Harvey furrowed his brows while holding the door to his office open. What was it that had gotten his associate so worked up so quickly? And his grandmother watching over him like he was a defenseless...well, puppy still kind of worked.

"I'll be fine gram," Mike made a pathetic attempt at a smile after helping to settle his grandmother into the wheelchair, "and I'll be better if you don't ever do anything like this again."

The woman caught his hand before he could pull away.

"Mike-"

"I'll take care of it grandma. I promise."

She smiled like that wasn't really what she wanted to hear, but she appreciated the effort.

"You always do Michael. That's the problem."

She sat back fully in the chair and the nurse seemed to take that as her queue.

"Alright Mrs. Ross. Let's head back. You, ma'am, have got some explaining to do." The nurse chided lightly, wheeling her out of the office toward the elevator.

"Don't you 'ma'am', me, Jodi Lynn." Grandma Ross shot back, but even Harvey could tell her heart wasn't in it.

Mike joined Harvey at the door to the office, watching his grandmother being wheeled away, looking like he'd aged ten years in ten minutes.

"So," Harvey began hesitantly, unsure at this point how much he actually wanted to get involved in his young associates' life. "What was that all about?"

In the corner of his eye he could see Donna roll her eyes at his lame attempt at sounding nonchalant.

Mike didn't seem to notice. He sighed as he stuck his hands in his pockets.

"She didn't want me to hear it from anybody else."

Harvey turned toward him. "Hear what, exactly?"

Mike blinked and looked at Harvey like he was seeing him for the first time.

He cleared his throat. "I'll um, I'll have those files you wanted proofed and copied before lunch." Then before Harvey could say another word he turned and started walking back towards his desk at a pace somewhere between a brisk walk and a jog.

Harvey watched him go until he couldn't see him anymore and then abruptly turned to enter his office, avoiding Donna's eyes like the plague.

He'd just sat down at his desk when Donna's voice rang out in the room.

"Really? That's it? You're just going to let him go back to work after that?"

"After what, Donna? We don't know what's going on, it's none of our business and I don't care. If he can keep getting his work done, then I say let him do it."

"Oh, so you spent ten minutes hanging around my cubical while they were in there to, what? Sort three pieces of junk mail?"

"I'm a lawyer Donna, I'm curious by nature."

"Yeah, sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night Harvey." Donna turned back to her desk, facing away from him and Harvey heard the unfamiliar sound of a click, severing their intercom link.

Harvey sighed and turned his chair to face the window. He'd always been a hands off kind of lawyer. Always been the type to keep everyone at arms length (except Donna, because not even Jessica was privy to some of the things Donna knew). But something was telling him he was about to have to change his policy for Mike.

And damned if Mike didn't seem to just have that effect on him.

TBC

Interested?