A.N. Ideas keep popping into my head _ I'm not happy about that, but here it is guys, another Suits fic!
Chapter One.
For as long as he could remember, Mike had always had the ability to memorize any one thing he read or saw. All this information-even the useless stuff-was stored in his brain. Billboards, ads, fliers, graphic novels, texts, numbers on his phone, all the great American novels, every Algebra, English, History, Civics, Precal, and well, any text book he'd ever received in high school. Laws, documents and files he read for Harvey, profiles of clients for the firm, numbers in dollar and percentage forms of their clients extensive wealth-well, you got the point. Eidetic memory. Mike had it.
So when one early Monday morning, Mike sat at his desk in the bullpen, turned on his computer, and his mind blanked completely on the password, it was only reasonable he panic. Just a little.
He went through his mind bank quickly, at first, then again, taking his time, going through everything stored in his head in their own separate categories. Maybe he'd misplaced the password somewhere in there? He'd never done this. He remembered his very first password for his very first account on a computer when he was fifteen: Mike101. Very cliche' and relatively simple. So how was it he couldn't for the life of him recall his password for a computer he'd been working on tirelessly just last Friday night?
"Something the matter, boy wonder?" Harvey had stepped into the building, taken the elevator up to his office, and from a distance, had seen his associate staring hard at the screen of his bright computer, brow furrowed.
Mike started, and looked up at the older man. "Uh, yeah." he said dumbly, "I..." he paused, not quite sure how to say this without sounding stupid. "I forgot my password." he decided to just get it over with and hope Harvey would fix the situation with his magic-lawyer powers.
Harvey raised a brow, "Did you check the hint?"
Mike shook his head, "I didn't write one in."
"Why not?"
Mike shrugged. "I've never had to. I always write it down, memorize it, and throw the paper our afterward."
"Oh right, eidetic memory." Harvey looked down at his associate, who looked more like a lost puppy now than he'd ever seen him before. "Guess all that weed finally killed off a few important brain cells, kid." he leaned in as he said this, in a lowered mocking tone, so none of the other early bird associates would hear.
Mike glared at his boss. "This isn't funny Harvey. This has never happened to me."
Harvey cracked a smirk. "I'm sure plenty of girls have heard that in your bed before Mike."
On a regular day that would have gotten a dry 'Oh ha ha.' from the young man, but today was not a regular day. He couldn't remember something he typed in every morning at work.
"Harvey, I'm serious." Mike put his head in his hands, went over more information tucked inside his brain, skimmed through files and texts and large amounts of numbers. Nothing.
Harvey suddenly realized Mikes' genuine despair, and chose to take pitty on the kid. "It's Ross999, Mike." he reminded him. "Everyone in the office knows it." he added, at Mikes 'How do you know that?' stare.
"Oh...yeah." Mike typed it in, and his screen displayed his account. "Thanks."
Harvey rolled his eyes as he left, shouting "Anderson files! In my office! In a half hour!"
Mike sat there for several more minutes, images of words and numbers and pictures and people and events suddenly coursing through his head at light speed. Then sound blurred into the images.
That one time he'd passed by that one street and seen that one flier posted to that window. There was a girl in front of him who had stopped to glance at the flier, she was listening to music on her i pod, bobbing her head along to the beat, God her hair was so red. It had been chilly that day, Mike could feel the cold seep through his light sweater, he hadn't been expecting the abrupt weather change when he'd stepped out of his apartment that morning. Your typical youthful couple jogging, two dogs on leashes brushed past him. He'd heard their voices. "I bought this new yogurt at the deli." Heard one of the large dogs bark. The clouds darkened the sky, a drop of rain fell on his face, then quickly, it escalated, the steady pitter patter of rain falling rapidly and-
"Hey! Anderson case, Mike, I asked for it a half hour ago." Harvey sighed exasperatedly. "What's up with you today?"
Mike glanced up, shocked that he'd let time slip by so easily. His head hurt though. He'd never remembered anything quite so vividly. He remembered things that had been written down and even the faces of people and numbers and so on, never had he remembered the smell or sound or taste or feel of anything the way he had just now. "Umm, it's-sorry Harvey, computer problems." he stuttered out, hoping the senior partner would drop it.
Harvey scrutinized Mike for a moment. "Are you alright?" The kid looked on edge. "Does this have something to do with Trevor?" he glared at his associate.
"What? No." Mike denied haughtily. "It's nothing, I'll have the loophole for the Anderson case at your desk in a few minutes." He digressed.
Harvey rolled his eyes, "Don't make me come back here."
"'Don't make me come back here'." Mike mocked as he walked away.
"Heard that!" he called out.
It was Mikes turn to roll his eyes.
Later that day Mikes head ache persisted but it was relatively manageable, so Mike rode through it as he sat in court, next to their client, watching as Harvey questioned a witness on the stand and drew the captivated jury in easily.
As Harvey recited a line in the law book, Mikes brain instantly went into overdrive, reciting the entire page, then the entire chapter, that the line had been written in. He felt as if he were stuck in that commercial about Internet search overload, where people just spouted random semi-relevant things they'd come across. Except, thank the Lord, he wasn't quoting the entire book out loud. Just in his head.
Mike discretely grit his teeth, his head was pounding, pounding, pounding, none stop. Quotes having to do with law started popping into his head.
Laws or ordinances unobserved, or partially attended to, had better never have been made.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to James Madison, Mar. 31, 1787
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
ANATOLE FRANCE, The Red Lily
"Law is an imperfect profession in which success can rarely be achieved without some sacrifice of principle. Thus all practicing lawyers - and most others in the profession - will necessarily be imperfect, especially in the eyes of young idealists. There is no perfect justice, just as there is no absolute in ethics. But there is perfect injustice, and we know it when we see it. Alan Dershowitz, letters to a Young Lawyer"
"Very well said Mister Ross." The judge, a kindly-looking African American woman with a smirk on her lips, said, then addressed the jury. "What Mister Ross quoted is an excellent example of-"
She continued to speak, but the buzzing in Mikes ears made it impossible to hear her at all. Oh God. Harvey was going to kill him. He was just glad that what ever he'd just spouted had been relevant to their case.
What was wrong with him?
"What is wrong with you?" Harvey hissed, once they got into the limo, as he slammed the door shut.
Well isn't that todays million dollar question? Mike thought sourly, wincing when all the game shows he'd ever watched came back into his mind full force, quirky announcers grinning, "This is the Price is Right!" "The Wheel of Fortune!" "Do you want to be a Millionaire?" It was becoming relentless.
"I don't know." he finally responded, sounding at a loss.
"What do you mean? Did you decide it would be fun to risk both our asses and the case over a redundant quote? You're damn lucky Judge Matthews has a soft spot for rookies." Harvey reprimanded, very pissed off at his associate.
Ray cringed in the front seat for the poor kid.
"Sorry." he muttered, trying to keep the ever stubborn head ache at bay.
"You've apologized what? Three times today?"
"Twice." Mike corrected automatically, his mind instantly recalling when and why he'd apologized so far today in excruciating detail.
Harvey glared at him. "That was rhetorical Mike."
"Rhetorical, expressed in terms intended to persuade or impress." Mike recited on cue.
Harvey got madder, if that was possible. "Ray, stop the damn car." He demanded, and practically shoved Mike out the door when he did. "You want to be a smart ass after almost costing me a case, be a smart ass who's walking the rest of the way to work." He slammed the door and told a reluctant Ray to keep going.
Mike stood there, shocked for a moment, before the clouds opened up and rain poured on him. Weather forecasts, channels, Internet pages, phone alerts, stormed into his head the moment the first drop of rain hit the ground.
The news, the channels the news played on, the television programs, the line up, the schedule, the guide, the shows he'd recorded on TV four months ago, television, the x box games he used to play on the small screen at Trevor's, Trevor, his crooked smile, the first time they'd met, they were in school, school, he'd dropped out of college, he'd had two professors he'd really liked, Davidson and Vroom, one had a patch of dark, thick black hair, he was tall and dignified, the other was to the contrary, very short, petite, fair skinned, strawberry blond hair, elderly.
Mike knelt on the ground in the middle of New York, head in his hands, trying frantically to make all the reel in his head turn off, cease, stop, please. It was too much.
Rain soaked him to the bone. In the busy cluttered streets of New York City no one bothered to stop and help the associate. People passed him by, barely spared him a glance.
Melanie, a catholic school girl from St. Marys' all girls high school, backpack over her head in a feeble attempt to shield herself from the harsh falling rain, was running across the street when she spotted the blonde man in the soaked suit, on his knees, looking extremely pale and in pain.
"Hey Mister, are you okay?" Melanie sighed. Dumb question-more instinct than anything at this point, really. "Umm, look, do you have anyone I can call for you?" He wasn't responding, panting through what seemed to be a massive amount of agony, instead. "Okay, I'm going to call 9-1-1 okay? They'll take you to the hospital." she took out her cell phone and nervously dialed the number that connected her to a dispatch operator on the other end of the line. "Hello? Uh, I need an ambulance, like stat," she gave the woman the street and number, and continued. "There's this guy-no, I don't know him-but he's really out of it. Umm, I don't know, like, maybe his early twenties?"
Melanie heard sirens and her heart leaped with relief. "Oh God, yeah, they're here." she spoke into her phone.
By the time the paramedics shoved the associate into the ambulance, Mike was very well unconscious. "C-can I come?" the fourteen year-old picked up the mans messenger bag and strapped it over her shoulder, along with her school bag, and hopped into the back of the ambulance as soon as the paramedics said she could.
In the hospital waiting room, Melanie had a chance to calm down and sort things out. Although she'd been taught never to invade another persons privacy, she had no other choice but to rummage through the messenger bag. Finding his wallet she saw that his name was Michael Ross, and that he apparently worked for some law firm called Pearson Hardman.
She dug further into his bag and found a cell phone. She went through the contacts.
1. Care Center Grammy
2. Harvey Specter
3. Pearson Hardman
Huh. "How curious." she muttered. She'd never come across anyone with so few contacts, frankly. The only reasonable contact to call, she thought, is this Harvey Specter guy. "Sounds fancy," Melanie murmured to herself, as she pressed call and waited for someone to pick up.
"Mike, it's been over a half an hour, it doesn't take that damn long to walk to the office from the court house."
Melanie blinked. Maybe she'd chosen the wrong person to dial after all. She cleared her throat. "Hi...this is Melanie Ramos, I uh...who are you to Michael Ross?" she inquired, wanting to make sure she wasn't telling some douche bag unnecessary information.
On the end of the line, Harvey felt himself go rigid. "Where the hell is Mike? I'm Michael Ross' boss. What happened to him?"
The alarm she heard in his voice was sincere enough that Melanie decided to tell him what had happened. "I found him on the streets, he was looking really really bad, so I called an ambulance, he's unconscious, I'm not really sure what's wrong with him, but umm, we're at Christ Hospital, if you want to, I don't know, make sure he's okay." she finished awkwardly, not sure what else to say.
Harvey was already in the limo with Ray on his way to the hospital by the time she was done speaking. "Thank you Melanie, I'll be right there." he hung up the phone and ran his fingers through his finely combed hair.
"Shit." he cursed.
A.N. Won't lie, this isn't going to be a happy story, but it will involve lots of comfort in the form of caring!Harvey, so yeah.