"Harvey, I am scared. What if we lose?" Louis Litt
.***.
At the beginning of October, an unseasonably cold wind blew in over the city. Mike woke halfway through the night to pull on a pair of sweatpants over his boxers before falling back to sleep. It wasn't until he woke for real, at six-ten in the morning, that he realized he'd been so cold through the night that his muscles had contracted painfully, making every movement hurt.
"Ouch! Goddamnit!" he hissed. He stared at the ceiling for a minute, willing his body to stop hurting and wondering if he had anything warm in the apartment. He'd put everything in boxes, hoping to find time to move somewhere better, and he just knew that his good autumn clothes would be at the bottom of the pile.
Six forty-two, and he finally willed himself into the shower, blasting the hot water in hopes that the heat would help the sore muscles. Slowly, so slowly, the tension left his legs, his shoulders, his arms. Mike beat his hand against the tiled wall of his shower and bit his lip to keep from screaming in pain. Fuck Fall and the sudden weather changes. For years, especially in high school, Mike had been on the receiving end of horrible growing pains, which had immobilized him for months at a time as his body protested the inches he gained. Doctors had all promised him this would stop when he finally quit growing around twenty, they'd said, just wait a few more years.
Yeah, right.
Mike took his time getting out of the shower, and it was seven seventeen when he got around to flipping on the news while he ate breakfast. Halfway through his cereal and banana he switched over to a channel that played old cartoons and risked a few minutes to watch Fred and Barney try to get out of another jam.
He watched most of another episode while trying and failing to come up with a warmer suit jacket. He really had to unpack the boxes that were taking up most of his hallway, and spending almost every night with Rachel didn't produce much initiative.
At seven fifty-four, he gave up on being warm and banked on the bike ride to work to get the blood flowing. Even though he was running late, he swiped the newspaper off of Mr. Romero's stood and leafed through it to find Joshua Specter's new political comic. He was still taking on the NYPD, and the picture made Mike smile broadly. He knew that Josh had gotten more threats since their bar fight a month ago. Sometimes he thought the artist had more guts than all the lawyers at Pearson Darby combined, himself and Harvey included.
After marveling over the comic and flipping to the funny section to see the new strip of The Cuckoo's Nest and reading through Family Circus, Zits, and Peanuts to boot, it was eight o'five before he was on his bike and peddling across town.
The cooling weather had done a number on Mike's old aching joints, but even he had to admit it was a beautiful day for a bike ride, event through the crowded city streets. Trying to push his muscles to get back to normal, he took a long way around the traffic-congested center streets. Even his phone vibrating a text message couldn't dampen his spirits, which had been much improved since his shower.
Mike rolled his eyes at Harvey's message COURT STARTS AT NINE WHETHER YOU'RE THERE OR NOT. He'd be to the court house with plenty of time to spare. It was eight forty-seven in the morning, and he was feeling good.
With the court house in sight, Mike Ross typed out a message to his boss, SORRY. He rolled his eyes when he saw Harvey get out of his car. The older lawyer had made it sound like he'd been waiting around for his associate to show up, and he was just pulling up, too.
Still a half block away, Mike started talking, "You really should try biking, Harv! Very scenic."
Harvey barely looked up at him, he was rifling through papers, but when he did lift his head his eyes widened—"Mike!"
At eight fifty, Mike's pretty okay morning was completely ruined by a car swerving into his left leg, his ribs, his head, and before he even had time to bounce off the curb all he knew was blackness.
.***.
Harvey loved Fall weather, especially when it was early. He'd been enjoying coffee in the car with the windows down when he got a call from Josh. He was almost at the court house, and when Ray pulled up to the curb he waved his hand, signaling that he knew they had arrived but he needed to stay in the car. It was eight thirty-three in the morning.
"Another one came, Harv," Josh started without even a perfunctory hello. "And—Jesus, it was sent to the house. What am I supposed to do?"
"Are you all right?" Harvey barked, and he hated the way his voice always sounded when he got anxious—he sounded cold and calculating, when really he was just scared. "Where are you?"
"I'm fine. I'm sitting in a diner—ran all the way here—but…this is getting scary, Harvey. My office I can deal with, but I got this one this morning and Paul got one too. Paul has a little boy, Harvey. He has a one-year-old and a cute wife and he got a letter saying that if he didn't shut me up he'd be shut up."
"Success breeds discontent," Harvey said automatically, even as his mind jumped to the possibilities. These people knew where Josh lived, and odds were 'these people' were part of the NYPD. They had the knowledge and the authority to get themselves inside Josh's apartment building, to break his door down, to his little brother. "It's just been a lot of threats. It doesn't sound like these people are serious."
He could hear, even through the phone connection and the traffic sounds right outside, the sound of pencil scratching against paper. Josh always took his frustrations out with his drawings. It was what landed him in this trouble in the first place. "They were serious when they beat me and Mike at that bar," Josh pointed out.
"Stay at my place for a couple of days," Harvey said, and he pretended it was because he could hear the fear in his brother's voice and not because of his own heart beating wildly in his throat, "It's too big, anyway."
"Harvey? Do you think I should stop drawing the police department?"
Every brotherly instinct told Harvey to say yes, but his whole being was made up of the rule that Specter's don't back down from a fight. "We don't negotiate with terrorists, Josh. Tell your editor to send his wife and kid to New England. I hear it's pretty this time of year."
"Thanks Harvey," Josh said, sounding better now that he knew Harvey was on top of this, "See you tonight."
Harvey hung up and stared at his phone, shaking his head. It was nearly nine, and Mike was nowhere in sight. He sent his associate a message, pretending it was because they were going to be late for court and not because every time he got off the phone with Josh he wanted to make sure Mike was okay, too. He just got the text off when a message from Josh came in. He opened it and tried not to grin at the quick sketch, done on the back of a paper diner placemat. It was one of his brother's beautiful sketches, this one of Batman, Robin, and Commissioner Gordon standing tall against the oncoming ranks of men wearing NYPD hats and uniforms.
A text came through a moment later I'M THE COMMISSIONER AND YOU GET TO BE BROODY BATMAN.
Harvey didn't even bother to ask who Robin was. He thanked Ray and told him he'd be out of court in no more than an hour, then got out of the car and shook his head thinking speak of the devil as Mike rode towards him, shivering in a too-thin suit.
He shook his head, ignoring the younger man who was already talking even a block away, and he shuffled through the papers, trying to think of something other than hate mail and death threats. Finally he couldn't ignore Mike any longer and he looked up in time to see an NYPD squad car come barreling down the street. "Mike!"
There was no reason for him to yell, there was no reason for him to think that the squad car was doing anything out of the ordinary, but something about Mike, looking so vulnerable on the spindly bike, and the conversation he'd just had, made him know a split second before it happened.
The squad car swerved and hit Mike hard. Harvey had time to see the surprise on Mike's face—the kid had been mid-smile, mid-wave, happy to see Harvey, happy with the weather and the fact that he was on time, happy—before he crumpled.
By the time Harvey knelt next to Mike, blood was already starting to stain the sidewalk, red like rubies, like a blinking stop light, like the color of a robin's chest as it falls.
.***.
Harvey was in the waiting room before he thought to check his messages. Already he'd used the phone to call an ambulance, to call the police, to call Donna and tell her to make all the necessary excuses. He'd been torn between going down to the police station and demanding names and staying at the hospital with Mike, whose brain had swollen and was in surgery and might not wake up. He'd called Joshua and told him what happened and didn't stay on the phone long enough to speculate, just told him to get down to the hospital, now.
So it wasn't until he was in the waiting room, after he'd tried and failed to wash Mike's blood off his hands, that he thought to scroll through his messages and see if there was something he missed.
Jessica, asking him where he was, then asking him if was all right, then telling him under no circumstances was he to take matters into his own hands, the hit-and-run cowards would be found and brought to justice, but not by him. Harvey erased the messages and decided that asking for forgiveness was always better than requesting permission anyway.
Donna, telling him she would be there as soon as she could, and don't let Mike do anything stupid.
A number he didn't know, who turned out to be Rachel, asking him if he had any more news on Mike's condition. She would be by soon, too.
Even Louis sent his condolences. Harvey suspected the financial wizard had a soft spot for Mike that he would never admit to.
And below all of that, just before nine o'clock, was a single word from Mike. Just SORRY, a one-word apology for not being up to the standards of the great Harvey Specter. And it occurred to Harvey that this apology could be the last communication he would ever have with Mike.
SORRY. Like Mike ever had anything to be truly sorry about in his life. Suddenly, surrounded on all sides by those who routinely saw death, faking credentials in order to be a lawyer sounded laughable, funny, and nothing anyone should spend time worrying about, not when death could come from a swerving police car. SORRY. Mike had spent so much time apologizing after the merger fiasco. SORRY. Mike was an orphan, friendless because of this job that forced him to lie repeatedly, daily. SORRY.
"I told sent a different comic to Paul to run for tomorrow," Josh said, collapsing next to Harvey and offering him a wan smile, "I know Specters don't back down from a fight and I know we don't negotiate with terrorists, but I think we're allowed to play smart, right? Pull back and regroup? Live to fight another day?"
"Yeah," Harvey said, "what's the new comic about?"
"Over a dozen US embassies in the Middle East closed because of Al-Queda threat—that's a little funny, right Harv? I guess everyone doing a little negotiating today—anyway, I had them get steamrolled in a hit-and-run." At Harvey's look Josh smiled and shrugged, "I'm pulling back to regroup, but don't think I'm not going to fire off one last shot." He ran a hand through his hair, glanced at the door down to OR, "How's he doing?"
"It's not looking good."
Josh shuddered and sagged in his seat, "I'm so fucking sorry. I hope he wakes up so I can tell him. Jesus, this is all my fault."
"We don't know that he was targeted because of you. Barely no one knows he's connected to you."
"Except for those pissed-off cops in that bar fight."
"I took care of them, I told you." But cops have friends, and they protected each other, and Harvey didn't have Mike's memory. No matter how many times he went over the hit-and-run, all he saw was Mike's head bouncing off the pavement, the scarlet splash it left behind. Try as he might, he couldn't remember the numbers on the squad car, or the license plate. Ray and other bystanders hadn't even seen it happen until it was over. It might not have even happened at all, except that Mike still wouldn't open his eyes, still wouldn't wake up.
Josh was still looking at the door, "I should have dropped it. This isn't worth it. I like Mike, Harv, I really do. I'm sorry."
"Stop saying that,' Harvey ground out. The apologies grated on him, one after another, and he found that he couldn't stand the cadence of a sorry. "You got nothing to be sorry about, okay? He'll be okay, and he'll wake up, and we'll find the guys that did this."
"Paul wants to buy a gun," Josh said, not hearing his brother's words, "I hate guns Harvey, you know how much I hate them, but what do I say? No, don't try to protect your little baby from the cops?"
"You're staying at my place tonight," Harvey said firmly, as if he hadn't already suggested this hours earlier.
The doors opened and Donna came in, Rachel on her heels. Josh watched them approach and shoved his hands in his pockets, "I think I'll stay here tonight, Harvey, if it's all the same to you."
Harvey wasn't listening to him anymore. Donna had thrown her arms around his neck and he buried his face in his hair and listened to her whispering prayers for Mike Ross's poor, swollen brain.
.***.
Two weeks later, Mike was playing cards with Harvey and Louis and Donna. Louis had won the first five hands and crowed every time, and then let up and let Mike win the next round, which the younger man found both patronizing and sweet.
He went to scoop up three cards in the run—they were playing gin rummy—when his hand shook. Mike took a deep breath and stared at the hand until it stopped moving. "Sorry," he muttered to the rest of the group, who pretended not to know what he was talking about. Except for Harvey, who sighed. Mike felt his cheeks get hot. He hated feeling Harvey's disappointment, and ever since he'd woken up a week ago to a body that didn't quite work right Harvey had been impatient with him.
Once again, Mike's thoughts turned to what he would do if this turned out to be permanent. All the doctors swore up and down it wouldn't be, that he was already improving and would be a hundred percent in a month or two, that it was a miracle. But what if Harvey didn't want to wait a month or two for him to recover? What if he was already looking for a new associate?
"I'm really sorry," Mike said, addressing the whole game but looking right at Harvey, "I'm trying. I really am."
"Stop it," Harvey said, his voice low and hard, "Just—stop."
Mike wilted and looked down at his cards, putting the three kings together and laying them out in front of him, suicidal king on top. "He's just upset he hasn't been able to track down who hit you," Donna said, rolling his eyes, "also, he hasn't been able to watch Law & Order because the nurses keep putting on Grey's Anatomy."
"Sorry," Mike said again, not knowing if he was apologizing for the nurses or Harvey's anger or his own uncontrollable shaking.
Harvey threw the cards down, "It's not your fault. Stop apologizing."
"You made yourself a lot of enemies, Mike," Louis said, "If we can't find the guys that hit you before you get out, they may target you again. You think you're up for it?"
Mike looked at Harvey, who was staring out the window. New York spread below them, in all its ugly, bustling glory. Mike couldn't face those streets alone. It wasn't what he was made to do. But when Harvey turned back to him, his expression was open for a moment, soft and compassionate, and Mike nodded to Louis. He was up for a fight, as long as he had a partner by his side. Robin could never do as much good solo.
.***.
You guys have been absolutely amazing with your reception to this. How's the idea of a story arc with the NYPD? And to clarify: we're not making any actual claims against the brave men and women on the actual New York police force. Those guys are heroes. This is all in our heads. But is it interesting?
Tell us what you think