Disclaimer: I don't own Suits. I'm too broke to even justify buying the first season on dvd.

A/N: This is my first fanfiction! I've been a long-time lurker/anonymous reviewer, but I've finally decided to just go ahead and publish something. I'm absolutely in love with suits and can't wait til season 2 returns. I hope you enjoy this and that everyone seems decently in-character. Unfortunately, the medical condition Mike is dealing with in this story is something that my sister has been struggling with for the past few years. So me writing this was just my way of dealing with my feelings on the matter. Other than that, I don't know anything about the law, insurance, or medicine, so just pretend that it makes sense for the sake of the story. Thanks!

Brighter Than Sunshine

It was just one of those days. So Mike should have known that The Dreaded Thing was going to happen. He should have known it when the clock struck midnight and he was just sitting down at his desk to proofread a 700 page brief for Louis. He should have known later that morning at 7:15 when he finally finished working and slumped over at his desk to catch a power nap. He definitely should have known at 7:37 when Kyle had awakened him by somehow pulling his swively desk chair out from under him (seriously, how had he done that?). He should have known when he had entered Harvey's office at 8:02 (still icing his lip from where he had cut it banging it on the desk during the rude awakening) and Harvey had handed him half a dozen files and told him to do research on all of them by lunch. And Mike definitely should have suspected The Dreaded Thing would happen when Louis called him in at 9:08, thoroughly traumatized him via an attempted discussion of his latest sexual endeavors, and loaded him with 300-page brief to edit by the end of the day.

Everything else that could go wrong that day did. He spilled coffee on his white shirt, angered Harvey when he forgot to bring a file that Harvey needed for a meeting, and didn't have time to eat breakfast or lunch due to his heavy workload. To top it all off, his headache was slowly snowballing into a full-blown migraine.

So Mike probably should have expected that The Dreaded Thing would happen that day, just to top off all the crap karma was already trying to dish him. But when The Dreaded Thing did happen, he realized it just a second too late, as he always did. Although The Dreaded Thing was constantly haunting some part of the back corners of his mind, he never realized it was going to happen in time. It was always just an instant too late and there was never any time to do anything about it, not even enough time to swear or shout a warning. It just happened.

(SUITS)

And so it happens the same way as always on this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. It is 3:26 and Mike has just gotten up from his desk to get his 5th cup of coffee for the day (he hasn't slept in 36 hours, after all) when he feels an intense wave of dizziness sweep over him. He realizes that he is shaking and clammy and vaguely wonders why but shrugs it off, assuming he's just hungry. He really hopes he won't faint, as all the associates are surrounding him at their desks and he wouldn't want to have to deal with their taunts about his "weak constitution."

As he makes his way over to the coffee pot, thinking about how he can get back into Harvey's good graces after his earlier slip-up with the file, he realizes that something a bit more serious than hunger might be plaguing him, because his legs are beginning to shake and black dots are beginning to dance in front of his eyes. But by now it's too late to do anything and he briefly laments the fact that he has placed himself in the center of the associate's area on his journey to get coffee, where everyone will now have a perfect view of The Dreaded Thing.

I probably should have warned Harvey that this might happen is his last thought before his eyes roll back in his head and he collapses.

(SUITS)

Harvey, on the other hand, has been having a pretty good day up until 3:26 when The Dreaded Thing comes to pass. He and Mike had closed a particularly tricky case the previous day and he had actually gotten home by 6 that night. He ate a nice dinner, watched Star Trek reruns, and went to bed early— all in all, the perfect evening. As a result, he feels well-rested and ready to tackle some new cases. He arrives at the office at 7:30 and rifles through the files on his desk before picking about a half a dozen of them for Mike to start going through. He sends Donna to fetch Mike at 7:45 but the kid doesn't appear until 8:02 and he is holding an ice cube to his lower lip, his blue eyes looking particularly sad and puppy-like today.

After working with Mike for almost a year, Harvey is pretty in tune with his associate. So he probably should have known or at least suspected that something bad was going to happen. Not The Dreaded Thing, of course, because Mike hasn't told Harvey about The Dreaded Thing yet. But Harvey should have known something was up with his associate. For example, Mike is wearing the same suit as the day before (but he's changed the tie at least to make it look like a different outfit). His white shirt under his jacket has recent coffee stains on it. He has bags under his eyes and his movements are oddly zombie-like.

Harvey notices all of this but doesn't take it that seriously. It won't be the first time that Mike has pulled an all-nighter at the office and it probably won't be the last. He knows he should make Mike catch a nap on his couch but he doesn't want to deal with the fight that the stubborn associate would inevitably put up against an imposed nap-time. Still, he figures he should ask Mike if he's okay. Not that he cares or anything of course, but the kid is a reflection of him after all and if there is something wrong he should know about it before Mike does something stupid.

"You look like shit," are the words that leave Harvey's mouth though, instead of his planned "Hey buddy, are you okay? You look pretty tired."

Mike looks offended, and that's another sign that Harvey should have caught that signaled something bad was going to happen. Usually Mike is always ready to banter and spar wittily with Harvey. Today, however, he just sighs wearily, scoops up the files Harvey has assigned him and leaves. Harvey watches him leave in surprise but doesn't dwell on it; there's work to be done.

(SUITS)

He sees Mike a few times throughout the day but doesn't interact with him as much as usual. The first time is at 9:15 when he enters the bathroom and finds Mike splashing cold water on his face and chanting something under his breath about repressing and erasing everything Louis has just tried to tell him about his "mistress of the night" from his eidetic memory. Harvey is bemused but doesn't say anything. He doesn't feel like dealing with Louis today.

He sees Mike again when he is leaving to grab lunch. He thinks about asking Mike to come since he's hardly seen the kid all day and he had, after all, been a big help on yesterday's case. The puppy deserves a treat, right? However, he changes his mind when he sees that Mike is clearly too focused on work to be dragged away. The associate is sitting at his desk, the omnipresent headphones in his ears. He's chugging a coffee and typing furiously. Harvey does not want to deal with a hyper, rambling associate at lunch, so he goes alone.

He sees Mike early in the afternoon, at 1:18 when he's getting ready to leave for an important meeting with a new client and this time it's on bad terms. He had given Mike the file last night before he left the office and told Mike to research a precedent for closing the contract of the client. When he arrives at Mike's desk at 1:18, however, Mike doesn't have the precedent ready for him. He looks panicky and says he forgot and Harvey knows it's an honest mistake caused by a lack of sleep. But it doesn't stop him from getting angry and taking it out on Mike. After dragging Mike to his office, thoroughly berating him, and slamming a copy of a 700-page brief into his associate's arms, he sends him back to his desk to edit the brief in shame, tail tucked between his legs.

Harvey goes to the meeting and nails it anyway, despite the lack of precedent. He congratulates himself and decides that maybe he was too harsh on Mike. The precedent had hardly been important in the end. Harvey had just pressed where it hurt until he closed the deal for the happy client. He decides to call Mike into his office when he gets back and apologize and make him go home at 6 tonight so the kid can actually get some sleep for the first time in 2 days.

He has just decided this as he's walking in the doors of Pearson Hardman at 3:26, back from his meeting, when all of a sudden he hears a commotion near the associate's area. He hurries over, trying to look superior and nonchalant while awkwardly speed-walking down the hall. After all, senior partners don't care about the problems of associates. But still, he can't help but think about Mike. As he draws closer he hears someone shouting "someone call 911!" and he breaks into a jog, forgetting his dignity. Mike is still weighing heavily on his brain and he feels deep inside that something is wrong with his associate. He tries to shrug off this irrational feeling as he nears the jumble of associates who seem to all have formed a circle around one person who they are watching in various degrees of panic. Louis is there and he looks uncharacteristically alarmed. Harvey quickly scans the associates in the clump, looking for Mike's familiar face. He feels his heart sinking into his stomach as he fails to come up with Mike's face, knowing that Something Bad has happened. He pushes his way into the center of the group and freezes suddenly, staring at the associate on the ground. He shouldn't be shocked that it's Mike that's in trouble (because when is the kid not in trouble?) but he still is. Because there on the floor of Pearson Hardman at 3:26 in the afternoon, Mike Ross is having a seizure.

(SUITS)

When Mike awakens, he feels strangely disoriented and disconnected from body. His eyelids feel heavier than the 800 page Kellerman brief Louis had given him last week and he struggles to lift them. He vaguely wonders where he is and why he's lying on what he assumes (based on his discomfort level) is the ground. As a greater awareness begins to creep into his consciousness, he becomes cognizant of a cacophony voices in the background, all of them sounding concerned.

"Mike? C'mon, kid, open your eyes," a man is saying close to Mike's left ear. Mike recognizes the voice instantly but he can't place it with a face. "….just open your eyes. You and I are going to have a lot to talk about when you wake up." The voice continues. Though that last statement seems vaguely threatening, the tone of the speaker seems both concerned and anxious and Mike feels like this is strange for some reason; like he's never heard the speaker sound this way before. He feels a gentle hand smooth the hair back from his forehead.

Mike blinks a few times and finally manages to pry his eyes open while trying to struggle into a semi-sitting position. He is still disoriented and has no memory of what has just happened to him. He looks around unseeingly, his mind scrambling to fill in the many blanks of the situation.

"Whoa, easy there, Mike," the voice says, helping Mike ease up into a fully-sitting position.

"Dad?" Mike asks blindly, trying to place this mysterious speaker. The hands helping him freeze for a moment before letting go of him.

"No, Mike, it's me, it's Harvey," the voice says cautiously.

"Where's Mom? Is Grammy ok?" Mike blinks to clear his vision and glances around for the first time. He is at Pearson Hardman with Harvey, he realizes. Donna, Louis, and all of the associates are surrounding them for some reason, and Harvey looks uncharacteristically pale. Nothing is making sense anymore and his eyelids are starting to feel dangerously heavy again. He settles back into a laying-down position.

"Your Gram is fine, buddy. Why don't you just rest for awhile," Harvey says.

"Ok," Mike mumbles, his eyes closing as he begins to fade. "Hey Harvey? Can you tell Louis that I don't want to play tennis with him next week? Tell him that the aliens are going to kidnap me this weekend. Will you tell him?" Mike knows he's not making any sense but it feels very important that he tells Harvey this.

Harvey chuckles. "Yes, I'll tell him. You just rest."

And so Mike drifts back into unconsciousness, feeling Harvey's hand smoothing his hair off his forehead again and feeling strangely safe, although he still has no clue what has happened.

(SUITS)

The next time that Mike wakes up, he is immediately far more coherent and lucid. He opens his eyes and takes in his surroundings, trying to remember what events had transpired that led to him being in what appears to be a hospital room. One glance out the window shows that it is nighttime, although he doesn't know what time exactly. He runs through the things that he does know at this point: He's in the hospital. His whole body aches, although there's no one specific body part that is in more pain than the others. He realizes that his tongue hurts and that he must have bit it at some point during—

Shit. Shit, shit, shit, Mike thinks, the pieces of what has happened suddenly falling into place. The ache in his muscles is agonizingly familiar, as is the pain from biting his tongue. God damnit. Another seizure.

Mike has never actually said the words "I have epilepsy" out loud. He prefers to think of his problem by the extremely mature moniker 'The Dreaded Thing', or simply as 'seizures' when he's talking to his neurologist and doesn't want to sound like a 5 year old. Other than that, he tries not to talk about it with anyone except his Grammy and, on the two occasions when Trevor had witnessed a seizure, he and Trevor would talk about it because it freaked Trevor out. But Mike refuses to admit to anyone that he has a problem because saying it out loud like that— "I have epilepsy"— means that he can't take it back and un-admit it; that it's a permanent condition. Mike's neurologist had told him when he was fourteen that Mike would probably grow out of it someday when his hormones settled after puberty. So Mike decided then and there that saying he had epilepsy out loud would jinx it. It's irrational, he knows, and he's completely in denial of his problem. But part of him is still hoping that if he just holds out a little longer, just another year or two, he'll grow out of it and it won't be a problem anymore. But that hasn't happened. And in fact, Mike's been having seizures more often lately. He's had two since starting at Pearson Hardman a year ago. (Both of them had happened at home, fortunately, and he had just called in sick and slept both of them off.) It's because he's been pulling so many all-nighters and not eating properly, but there's not much he can do about that. He's an associate for Christ's sake; he's expected to put in 80 hour work weeks. There's no time for sleep or eating balanced meals.

Mike is distracted from his musing by the sound of movement next to his bed. He looks over and jumps. Harvey is dozing in the uncomfortable-looking chair next to his bed, his expensive three-piece suit rumpled and his hair slightly messy, like he has run his hands through it a few too many times. He's asleep but on the verge of waking, if his rustling and shifting are any indication. And sure enough, Mike only has to wait about a minute before Harvey blinks, rubs his eyes, and takes in his surroundings. Once he realizes where he is, he immediately looks to Mike.

"You're awake," Harvey remarks in surprise, his voice gravelly.

"Excellent observation," Mike says, his voice equally gravelly from misuse. "What time is it?"

Harvey pulls out his phone and checks. "11:00. How are you feeling? You look like shit."

"Thanks. You look good too. This whole caring-about-the-wellbeing-of-my-associate thing gives you a nice glow," Mike grins.

"I do not care! You're a reflection of me, and I care about me. So I can't have you going around and having seizures and scaring everyone all the time," Harvey insists, but the words seem forced. Mike only dimly recalls the first time he woke up after the seizure, but he can't help but think about the way Harvey had helped him sit up, answered his irrational questions, and smoothed his hair out of his face. Not to mention the fact that Harvey has apparently sat by his bedside for the past 7 hours. Actions speak louder than words, and Harvey's actions have spoken loud enough. So Mike decides that he doesn't need to force Harvey to say he cares out loud. At least not today.

"So what happened exactly? Besides the whole seizure thing, I mean," Mike changes the subject.

"Well I don't know much either. Apparently you were on your way to the coffee pot when you just sort of collapsed and started convulsing. Harold called 911 and Donna, who apparently knows first aid, timed it and made sure you were able to breathe. You were gone for about 4 minutes. After that you woke up and were disoriented, nothing you said made much sense. Then you fell asleep just as the ambulance got to the office. And here you are now. How do you feel?" Harvey recites all of this very quickly, as though he doesn't want to think about it or relive it.

"I'm fine. Just sore and tired. And I'm sorry if I said anything weird right after when I woke up. I'm usually pretty out of it," Mike says, figuring at this point Harvey deserves honest answers to his questions. He looks freaked out and has sat in an uncomfortable chair for Mike all day, so the least Mike can do is answer his questions.

"So this has happened before in the past," Harvey confirms. "Why didn't you tell anyone? How long has this been going on?"

"I don't like to talk about it. And The Dreaded Thing only happens once every few months—" Mike begins, but Harvey cuts him off, smirking.

"You actually call epilepsy 'The Dreaded Thing'? How old are you? 6?"

"Well, I was 7, actually, the first time it happened," Mike says, and Harvey immediately sobers up.

"Do they know why you have seizures? Can you tell when one's going to happen?" Harvey asks, his voice much gentler than usual.

"No, I can't ever tell until the very last second and by then it's too late for me to do anything about it. And none of my neurologists know why it happens. They thought I would outgrow it by the time I was twenty, but it just never stopped. It gets worse though, when I don't sleep a lot or eat properly. After my parents died, when I was 11, I had a ton of them because I had nightmares all the time about their car crash and couldn't sleep," Mike admits softly, not sure what has brought on this sudden need to share his past with his mentor. He looks up at Harvey and hopes that he won't see pity on his boss's face. He can't stand pity. Instead he's surprised to see that Harvey looks angry.

"Do you mean to tell me that you've been deliberately been pulling all-nighters and working yourself to exhaustion knowing that this might happen? God damnit, Mike, you've got to take better care of yourself," Harvey snaps.

"It's not like I can help it, Harvey!" Mike snaps, trying not to sound whiny. "You and Louis both give me a million things to do, and there's only so many hours in the day. And I actually like this job and want to keep it, so I do all the shit you guys ask of me. It's not my fault my brain's all fucked up and I have seizures, Harvey!" Mike is shouting now, and he doesn't know where this sudden anger is coming from. He's horrified by the way his voice rises and cracks slightly at the end of his rant and he slumps back onto the pillows of the hospital bed, suddenly exhausted.

Harvey leans forward to look directly into Mike's eyes. "Mike," he says earnestly, "pay attention because I'm only going to say this once. You should have told me about this from the beginning. You know I wouldn't dump stuff on you as heavily as I do now if I had known; I'm not a complete bastard. You need to sleep more and eat better from now on. And I won't give you less work, because I know that you'll think that I think that you're weak if I do that. But I'll do my best to get Louis to lay off you. And I'll give you work in shifts instead of dumping all of it on you at once. Now that I know about this problem, we can fix it, Mike. But I need you to be more honest with me about his kind of stuff from here on out. You're my responsibility, and it's my job to have your back on stuff like this."

Mike blinks rapidly. It's been so long since someone has cared this much about Mike's problems. His Grammy cares, of course, but now that she's older it's his job to take care of her and not the other way around. It's both scary and nice at the same time, this whole trusting-someone-else-to-look-out-for-you thing.

"You're right. I should have told you. But I don't like to talk about, and I had hoped it would never happen at the office. I've just been used to dealing with it on my own for so long," Mike admits.

"Well you don't have to anymore. Donna threatened to chop my balls off if I didn't have a heart-to-heart with you and make that clear to you. She was here earlier, by the way. She left those flowers for you," Harvey indicates the bouquet that's sitting on the table beside Mike's bed and Mike can tell by Harvey's tone that it's time to stop talking about emotional stuff and go back to normal.

So they sit and watch reruns of friends and banter like they usually do until a doctor comes and tells Mike he's being discharged for the night as long as he promises to call his neurologist and schedule an appointment tomorrow.

"What will your neurologist do when you see him?" Harvey asks as they sit on a bench and wait for Ray to pick them up. It's about midnight now and Mike is exhausted, but he's grateful that he doesn't have to spend the night in the hospital.

"I probably won't even call him. The neurologist can't do much since he doesn't know what causes the seizures. He'll probably just tell me not to drive, which I don't do anyways," Mike shrugs.

"That's why you ride that stupid bike everywhere? Jesus, I just thought you rode it because you're secretly a five year old girl."

"That's funny, Harvey. Me as a five year old girl. That one never gets old. You should keep using it," Mike grumbles, rolling his eyes.

"Are you taking medicine for this?" Harvey asks suddenly.

"Nah, I tried a bunch of different types in high school but none of them made a difference and a lot of them messed with my moods and my attention span," Mike yawns, hoping Ray will show up soon before he falls asleep on Harvey's shoulder.

"Well it's been years. Don't you think you should try medicine again now that you're not going through puberty?" Harvey persists.

"I dunno. I don't really want to go through all of that again. And medicine is expensive," Mike says, rubbing at his tired eyes now.

"You are such a colossal idiot sometimes. If you told Jessica about this, she could update your Pearson Hardman insurance from the basic plan and it would cover all of your treatments and medicines. Honestly, you call yourself a lawyer but can't even figure that out? It was a lucky day for you when I adopted you as my puppy. God only know where you'd be right now without Donna and I," Harvey snarks, but there's no real bite to it. Mike just shrugs and yawns some more, his eyes sliding shut and his head drifting dangerously close to Harvey's shoulder. Harvey is staring straight ahead and steadfastly pretending not to notice this development.

He rests his head against Harvey for barely a minute before Ray pulls up and honks at them. They clamber tiredly into the car and Ray begins to drive. Mike closes his eyes again and leans against the cool glass of the window.

"Mike?" Harvey queries, sounding pensive. "What did you mean earlier when you said your brain was fucked up?"

"Jesus, Harvey, what is this, 20 questions? I swear to god, if you want me to tell you all about my past and cry on your shoulder like a five year old girl while you psychoanalyze me, it's not going to happen," Mike says wearily, trying to deflect. Harvey sees right through him, of course.

"I'm serious, Mike. What did you mean by it?" Harvey seems to feel like it's important that he knows and Mike sighs and capitulates, knowing that once Harvey wants information there's no use trying to hide it because he always gets what he wants eventually. Damn closers.

"What do you think I meant by it, Harvey? My brain's clearly not wired correctly— I have an eidetic memory and seizures. That's not normal. I suppose it's just the universe's way of balancing things out. I have to pay for the benefits of having an eidetic memory somehow, right? So I have seizures to go along with the memory. Fair's fair, right?" He hates how bitter he sounds, because he knows that it could be so much worse, that he could have a tumor or some genetic disorder. But it's still hard to deal with.

"There's nothing wrong with your brain," Harvey says, sounding surprisingly earnest, like he really wants Mike to believe that. "I wouldn't hire an associate who had something wrong with his brain. It would reflect on me poorly."

Mike can't help but laugh at that. He dozes off for the rest of the ride and is surprised when he opens his eyes and finds himself at Harvey's condo.

"Well, are you coming or what?" Harvey asks his bewildered associate. "Are you just going to sleep in the back of the car?"

Mike is too tired and surprised to argue, so he just climbs out of the car, thanks Ray, and follows Harvey up to his apartment.

"Why am I here?" He asks dumbly as Harvey unlocks the door and pushes him inside.

"Weren't you listening to the doctor? He said someone needed to keep an eye on you tonight. I won't have you going back to your crappy apartment and having another seizure. Donna would murder me," Harvey says, disappearing into his bedroom. He emerges a minute later, holding a pair of pajama pants and a Harvard t-shirt for Mike and pointing him to the bathroom. Mike changes and shuffles back to the couch, his exhausted body on autopilot. He sinks onto the uber-comfy couch, letting out a sigh of contentment as the stress fades away from his shoulders and his back. He drifts off almost instantly, but regains consciousness briefly when he feels Harvey come over, stick a pillow under his head, pull off his socks, and drape a blanket over him.

Mike smiles, thinking he has never felt so perfectly comfy before in his entire life.

"Thanks, Harvey," Mike mumbles. "This counts as caring, you know."

"Hmmm," is all Harvey says, before ruffling Mike's hair, flicking off the lights, and heading to his own room. "Night, kid."

Then Mike drifts away to unconsciousness for the 3rd time since 3:26 that afternoon.

(SUITS)

The next time Mike wakes up, there is sunlight streaming through the window of Harvey's apartment on Mike's face. He blinks, his eyes feeling gritty. He's still sore, but feels much better now that he's slept for 11 hours, and— wait, what? It's 11 in the morning? Harvey's going to kill me! He thinks as he leaps of the couch in a weird ballerina move that ends with him smashing his shin against the coffee table. Swearing fiercely, he hops on one leg to the kitchen where he had dropped his messenger bag the night before to grab his phone so he can call Harvey and grovel and apologize. He stops, however, when he finds a note addressed to him on the kitchen table.

I don't want to see you in the office before noon today, Mike reads Harvey's familiar handwriting. Call Ray to bring you in. You can borrow a suit but don't tell anyone. Mike smirks at that. We have a meeting with Jessica at 1:00 to discuss your insurance. We're going to deal with this problem, whether you like it or not, puppy.

Mike doesn't know if he should feel touched or offended that Harvey is inserting himself in Mike's life like this. It would make Grammy happy. She has always worried about Mike's seizure problem and feared that nobody will be around to take care of him when she is gone someday.

He takes a quick shower and digs around Harvey's closet to find a suit that isn't three pieces. He already gets teased enough about being Harvey's golden boy as it is; he'll get destroyed if he shows up to work dressed like the man. He freezes for a minute as he realizes he will probably be mocked mercilessly by the other associates for what happened yesterday. He had had a seizure in school once in 9th grade and had been teased for all of high school about it. He has a bad feeling that he will receive the same treatment today, since most of the Harvard douches are about as mature as 9th graders. Oh well, he thinks. I can deal with this. I've dealt with much worse things before.

Finally he manages to find an old-but-still-nice two piece suit. He mourns the fact that Harvey doesn't own any skinny ties and vows that he will buy him one for his next birthday. Then he calls Ray and hitches a ride to Pearson Hardman. He grabs lunch from the hot dog vender outside of the building and makes his way into the office, trying to choke back nervousness at seeing everyone after having a seizure in front of them yesterday.

He is surprised when he steps into the associate's area and nobody mocks him. Maybe Louis or Harvey have threatened them, but they all seem genuinely glad that he's ok. Harold slaps him awkwardly on the back, and Kyle doesn't say anything that is overtly derogatory or offensive, which is a first. He drops his messenger bag on the floor at his cubicle and heads off to find Donna and thank her for the flowers.

She clucks and fusses over him like a fierce mother hen, hugging him and smoothing back his hair and scolding him for not having told her about his seizures in the first place.

"Thanks for the flowers, Donna," Mike says. "And thanks for threatening Harvey into talking to me last night."

Donna beams at this. "Oh, Mike," she says, glancing fondly into Harvey's office where Harvey is immersed in reading a contract. "I didn't threaten him. I didn't tell him to talk to you at all, he must have just used me as a cover-up story. But you can't tell him that I told you! You know Harvey, he can never admit he cares. I knew he would get involved in fixing this though after I saw the look on his face when you were laying on the ground yesterday. I knew it!" She laughs triumphantly, hugs him one last time, and pushes him in the direction of Harvey's office.

Mike feels almost shy as he walks in. After all he has shared with Harvey in the past 24 hours, he can't help but feel vulnerable. Now that Harvey knows everything, he has the power to use it to hurt him. Mike knows he won't, but it's a strange feeling, depending on and confiding in someone else.

"Hi," he says inanely, trying not to sound like a blushing schoolgirl in front of his mentor.

Harvey looks up from what he's reading and glances over Mike quickly, as if to make sure that Mike looks healthy and well-rested.

"Hi," Harvey says. Mike glances at the clock and sees that it is 12:45. Apparently Harvey has noticed this too, because he stands up and prepares to leave the office, motioning for Mike to follow. "Come on, we'll talk on the way to Jessica's office."

Mike begins feeling nervous about this meeting again. He doesn't want to talk about The Dreaded Thing with anybody, much less his boss's boss. But he follows Harvey down the hall, trailing after him like an obedient puppy, ignoring Donna's sappy smile as she watches them walk by together.

"Alright, so here's the deal. You tell Jessica about your condition, you sign the papers, you go see the best neurologist you can find and you start trying new medications. We will deal with any side effects and get this damn thing under control," Harvey begins firmly, sounding like a war commander and the best closer in the legal field (which he is). Mike thinks maybe his seizures will go away purely out of fear of what Harvey will do if they come back.

"You are going to tell me if you have another seizure. I don't care if it happens outside of the office, both your neurologist and I are going to hear about it. Deal?" Harvey continues, and Mike is seized with the wild desire to shout "sir, yes sir!" and salute his boss. Instead he just settles for bobbing his head fervently in agreement.

"Good boy. You can do this, Mike. Trust me. It'll be fine," Harvey says. They have arrived at Jessica's office and Mike gulps back his nervousness.

Harvey knocks and ushers Mike inside, leading him to the desk where Jessica is waiting.

"Hello, Harvey, Mike," she says and both men greet her politely in reply. "Please have a seat." They sit, and Harvey places his hand on Mike's shoulder in a much-needed gesture of fortification. Mike takes a deep breath. You can do this.

"Now, Mike, I hear that an incident occurred yesterday and now you need a different insurance plan. Care to elaborate?" She says, not unkindly. But she is still intimidating.

Mike takes a deep breath. "Yes, ma'am. I had a seizure yesterday." He sits there for a minute and thinks about what to say next. He thinks about the fact that it's probably time for him to admit to himself that he is 25 almost 26 and his problem is not going anywhere, despite what one neurologist had told him 11 years ago. He thinks about the fact that he probably should look into getting some new medication and actually taking control of this thing. He thinks about how much better his life has gotten in the past year and about how proud his Grammy will be when she learns that he is learning to trust someone else. He thinks that maybe he will actually follow up and call his neurologist for once, because he doesn't want to let The Dreaded Thing to define his choices anymore. He thinks about how he wants to stop fearing that his own body and mind will betray him at any minute. He thinks about Donna's smile, Rachel's friendship, and the way that Harvey's hand is warm and supportive on his shoulder right now.

"I have epilepsy," Mike says finally, and it wasn't as hard to say as he thought it would be for all those years. Harvey's hand squeezes his shoulder gently and he thinks that Harvey is looking at him with something akin to pride in his eyes.

"I have epilepsy," he says again, the words rolling off his tongue easily this time. "And I want to get it under control. I'm sick of living with this fear, never knowing when I'll have a seizure. So if it would be possible, I'd like to upgrade my insurance plan to cover treatment."

"Of course, Michael," Jessica says. "We here at Pearson Hardman believe our employees deserve the medical best care out there. We'll do everything we can to help you, and we're all rooting for you to get control of this."

And that's that. He signs a bunch of insurance papers, calls his neurologist to schedule an appointment, and heads back to his cubicle.

He has read through a couple of files when Harvey comes to get him. "C'mon, rookie. We've got about 2000 pages of law books to read through this afternoon to find a precedent for the Wilkins' contract. So get off your ass and stop doing Louis's work. It reflects poorly on me when you pander to that idiot's bidding."

Mike just grins at this and stands to follow Harvey. Louis, Gregory, and Kyle are glaring at him enviously as Harvey snarks at him. Some things will never change. But a lot of things have changed, he realizes, as he glances at the clock on the way out of the associates' area. 3:26. It's been exactly 24 hours since The Dreaded Thing has come to pass, and Mike feels a lot different than he did yesterday. He realizes that the fear of his own mind is no longer suffocating him, and he feels lighter than he has in years. Harvey's got his back, his secrets are safe, and the future looks bright.

"Are you coming or what? Because you can read all 2000 pages by yourself if you want. I don't mind at all," Harvey calls back to him, and Mike hurries to catch up with him. 3:27. Time to get back to work.