Hello! It's fair to say it's been a while, but here's the next chapter! I haven't given up on this fic an I have no plans of doing so. Work and school will always get in the way, but something keeps me coming back to writing it. Even though it's been literal aeons since I last updated, I'm always checking reviews and PMs when I get a can, so if get a chance or if you just feel like it, please do drop me one It's massively helpful for me, especially critical ones!

Enjoy and I hope you have a good day!

(Also my PMs are always open to fic recs)

Harvey hung up the phone and reclined in his desk chair, feeling pretty smug. He'd just closed a deal that Louis had been working on for weeks in all of 14 minutes, meaning his third quarter bonus was lining up to be fairly sizable, and to top it off, things with Mike were going well. The kid seemed happy, for once. The Frogs had brought him back to life; yeah, perhaps the boy's constant chatter about his new friends and 'cool' facts he'd learnt was slightly grating after a long day at work, but he'd much rather have animated, cheery Mike than the morose, moping teenager he'd had to deal with for the first few weeks of the semester.

He was pulled out of thought as Donna appeared in his doorway, phone in hand.

'Harvey, it's-'

'Come on, Donna, I thought I made it clear,' Harvey cut in, tipping his chair back slightly. 'I get a 20-minute celebratory window to rest on my laurels before taking on any more cases. Tell them I'll call back later.

'Harvey, it's Mike.' Donna repeated, her tone urgent.

Harvey was across the room in seconds. He took the phone from his assistant, mouthed a quick 'thank you' and pressed it to his ear.

'Harvey Specter. Who's speaking?'

'Ah, Mr Specter,' came the male voice from the other end, 'I take it you're responsible for Michael Ross?'

'I am,' Harvey said, before repeating his question with a little more force. 'Who am I speaking to?'

'Dr Stephen Macham, Bellevue Hospital ER.'

Fuck. He'd been sitting there, self-satisfied, whilst the kid was in the goddamn hospital.

'What happened?' he asked.

'As I told your wife-'

'My assistant,' Harvey interjected.

'Forgive me, Mr Specter, as I told your assistant, it's nothing to worry about,' the doctor continued. 'Mike was in a lot of pain when he arrived, but we've minimized that now, which is reassuring, and his obs have stabilized.'

Harvey was feeling neither reassured nor stable. The doctor's circumspect speech was giving him no answers. All he knew was that Mike was hurt and most likely alone.

'Respectfully, Doctor - cut to the chase,' Harvey said brusquely.

'Respectfully, Mr Specter, I was just getting there. Mike fell of his bike this afternoon. He's cracked the growth plate in his right wrist and fractured the radius on the same side. It looks like he caught his head when he fell and we had to give him a few stitches, but I'm fairly certain he's not concussed. Other than that, he's fine, if a little bruised.'

'Right,' Harvey said, trying to process Macham's words. 'I'm leaving the office now. I'll be 20 minutes max.'

'Good. Mike's in ward 6, bed 2,' Dr Macham said. 'And I have to warn you, Mr Specter, the boy may be a little... odd.'

'I'm sorry?'

'The pain medication he's on can leave patients a little out of sorts,' the man explained. 'Don't be too surprised if he's not his usual self.

'Harvey!' Mike's voice rung out over the quiet ward. 'I told them you'd come! I mean, I didn't really know if you would come or not, but it felt nice to say that someone was coming for me even if you weren't, so I said it anyway. I hope I didn't interrupt any big lawyer-y things. Oh, god, Harvey, you're a big lawyer, of course I interrupted some big lawyer-y things. Are you gonna sue me? Is that why you're here? Please don't sue me, Harvey.'

Christ on a bike, Harvey thought. Whatever meds the doctors had put the teen on had removed any filters he had. Yeah, he was usually a talker, but right now his mouth was running faster than Usain Bolt on speed.

'How are you feeling, kid?' Harvey asked, sitting in the plastic chair next to Mike's bed. The boy was propped up on a pile of hospital-issue pillows, his face flushed and his hair sticking up at the back in a way that seemingly defied gravity. A cut on his right temple was framed by a nasty bruise and there was a lurid green cast on his forearm, but, to the lawyer's relief, he looked considerably healthier and more perky than Harvey had feared when he'd found out that the kid had ended up in hospital.

'I'm just fine,' Mike replied, 'thanks for coming but you can leave if you want, I mean, you don't have to go, but if you want to, that's really quite okay with me. I don't want to stop you from doing all your big lawyer-y things, and I'm not quite sure that I have the funds to sustain a legal case if you do sue me. Grammy only gave me a dollar a week of pocket money and a quarter for every chore I did, which was really quite unfair considering what the Fair Labour Standards Act says, but anyway that means I only have $17.50 to my name.'

'I'm not going to-'

'Oh, I forgot about the ten dollars I found on the street last week! That makes it $27.50!' Mike cut in, his initial delight at the realisation soon turning to fear. 'I shouldn't've kept that, should I? Oh, God, that wasn't very lawful of me, I-'

'Mike,' Harvey said firmly. The boy stopped his flustered rambling and looked at the lawyer, startled. 'I'm not going to sue you, and I'm definitely not leaving.'

'Oh,' the teen said, appearing visibly relaxed at the revelation.

'I need you to answer my question, though,' Harvey continued. 'How are you feeling, really?'

'A little sore and tired,' Mike said, 'but mostly actually fine. And a bit regretful.'

'Regretful?' Harvey questioned.

'Yeah,' Mike said, gesturing to his immobilised arm, 'the doc let me choose the colour of my cast and I chose green 'cause I thought it would be a cool green, like a sorta Hulk green, but instead it's more of a puke green.'

Harvey laughed.

'You're right about that, kid,' he said. 'It's less Incredible Hulk and more incredibly offensive to my eyes. Did the doctor say when it comes off?'

'Yeah, two weeks,' Mike said, grinning.

'Jesus,' Harvey groaned, 'I'm gonna have to purchase myself a new pair of sunglasses to cope. How about your head, kid? With those stitches you're giving off more of a Frankenstein vibe than a Hulk one. You've got your green dudes mixed up.'

'No, I was actually aiming for Harry Potter. I'm still waiting for Hagrid to whisk me away to Hogwarts,' Mike laughed, tentatively touching the jagged cut on his forehead.

'Funny, kid,' Harvey smiled, shaking his head. 'How did it happen? All the doctor on the phone said was that you fell of your bike, is that right?'

'Um, sorta, yeah,' Mike said, a flush of embarrassment creeping into his cheeks. 'I was hit by a car, but-'

'I'm sorry, you were hit by a car?' Harvey interjected. 'Tell me the license plate.'

'No, Harvey, it's not-'

'Do not pretend you can't remember it,' Harvey said, his tone dangerous. 'Someone put you in hospital because of their careless driving and they're going to pay for it.'

'Really, it wasn't like that,' Mike said, his cheeks bright red. 'I, um, ran a red light.'

'You did what?' Harvey's anger at the car's driver did a U-turn, homing in Mike like a heat-seeking missile. Taking a deep breath, he leant back in the plastic chair, trying to calm down. He ran a hand wearily over his face and looked at the boy, who was staring back at him with wide, frightened eyes. Sighing, he decided that the kid had been through enough today. Reigning in his temper, he asked, 'how did it happen?'

'I saw someone that I recognised, and I didn't notice that the light had changed,' Mike replied, 'the next thing I knew I was looking up at the sky and my bike was on top of me.'

'Jesus Christ, kid. For someone so bright you can be wildly oblivious sometimes. You've got to keep a better eye on what's happening around you.' Harvey admonished. 'Was it a girl?'

Mike, who had just about recovered his composure, flushed bright red again.

Harvey smirked. 'Who is she?'

'She's called Rachel, and she's, um, really pretty, like she's got this super nice shiny hair, and she's the really good at modelling with differential equations,' Mike blushed. 'She goes to my school and I've never really, uh, spoken to her per se, but she sits in front of me in AP biology and she handed me a pencil last week.'

'Oh, yeah? She sounds lovely, kid,' Harvey said, trying to keep a straight face. 'Was she worth getting hit by a car for?'

'Definitely,' Mike said, his face the picture of seriousness. 'She was the one that called 911. I didn't even think she knew my name, but she said, 'are you okay, Mike'! And she said I was really brave!'

'That's really great, Mike,' Harvey said, before adding more seriously, 'Next time I'd rather your attempts to woo her don't end up in a hospital visit, alright?'

'Yeah, 'kay,' Mike said, 'I'm gonna end up with a pretty cool scar, though, don't ya think? On my head? There was a study in 2008 at the University of Liverpool that found that scars make men 5.6% more attractive, which is odd when you think about it because they're a sort of disfigurement really, aren't they, but we can overlook that because maybe Rachel will find me more attractive. Have you got any scars, Harvey? Do they help with girls?'

Harvey raised an eyebrow. After the last few minutes of lucid conversation, Harvey had assumed that the effect of Mike's meds had worn off, but the boy was either still slightly off his head or was just intent on talking himself into an early grave.

'Listen to me, Mike,' he said, pinning the boy with a firm gaze. He made sure he had Mike's full attention before continuing. 'You're a clever boy, I'm sure you can imagine how worried I was this afternoon, knowing that you were in hospital, in pain, alone. However fun and trivial this experience was for you, I don't want to go through it again. I want your word that it's not going to happen again.'

'Sounds like you care,' the teen said with a small smile.

'I'm not joking, Mike. I want your word.'

Mike sobered under the lawyer's steely gaze. 'You've got it. It won't happen again. I'll be more careful next time.'

'Good.' Harvey said, satisfied. He leant forward, gently brushing a few strands of the boy's sweaty hair out of his eyes, and said, 'You're right, you know. I think, perhaps, I do care.'

Mike's eyes widened, and he looked as though he might be about to say something, but before he could, the door to the ward swung open and a doctor in pale blue scrubs strode in. Harvey abruptly withdrew his hand from the boy's head and stood, extending a hand to the doctor, a picture of professionalism.

'Mr Specter is it?' the doctor asked. He was a tall man, lean but not lanky, with close-cropped grey hair. 'Dr Stephen Macham, I believe we spoke on the phone earlier.'

'Ah, yes,' Harvey said, recalling the phone conversation slightly bashfully. 'I apologise for snapping. I really don't know what came over me.'

'No harm, no foul, Mr Specter. It's quite natural to be irritable when you're stressed about the wellbeing of a child,' Dr Macham smiled, 'Believe me, I've had much worse directed at me before.'

'I'm still sorry. Thank you for looking after Mike.'

'It's my job, Mr Specter,' the doctor smiled again. 'I was actually just popping by to give you two some good news; I just got the x-rays through and it looks like we don't need to operate, so your boy's free to go home.'

'Brilliant, thank you,' Harvey said, chuckling as Mike did a celebratory fist pump.

Dr Macham left Harvey with a list of prescriptions and instructions for delivery and dosage, and it wasn't long before they were packed and off to meet Ray where he waited for them in the car park.

Harvey sighed wearily, his eyelids drooping. He was slumped on his living room sofa with Mike sprawled next to him, the boy's head resting in his lap. His left hand was rubbing slow circles on Mike's back and his right was loosely resting on a big kitchen bowl, poised and ready to grab it should the kid need to spew.

Harvey had thought they were home and dry once Mike had been discharged from the hospital, but it was far from plain sailing. The meds had made the teen drowsy, and he'd was in such a deep sleep by the time that Ray dropped them home that Harvey had had to literally carry him to bed. Barely ten minutes had passed, however, before the boy came rushing out of his room, wide awake, and projectile vomited down the front of Harvey's three-piece suit before bursting into sobs. Despite a number of assurances that it really was only his second best three-piece and that dry cleaning would definitely fix it, Mike was inconsolable and couldn't be coaxed back into bed. Giving up, Harvey had changed clothes and settled down on the sofa with him.

What followed was definitely one of the hardest nights of Harvey's life. Mike's stomach wasn't agreeing with the medication, so the poor kid fluctuated between being in intense pain and retching. Harvey felt absolutely hopeless. All he could do was try and console the boy, whilst catching any vomit in the kitchen bowl, unfortunately a talent that he had plenty of occasions to hone over the long night.

Now, as dawn began to arrive and shafts of dim light were thrown through the blinds onto the pair in repose, the frequency of Mike's episodic vomiting was appearing to tail off, to Harvey's relief.

'Harvey?'

The man started at the small voice, his hand instinctively grasping the bowl at his side.

'You need to throw up, kid?' he asked.

'No, I don't think so,' Mike whispered, his throat sore from retching. 'May I have some water?'

'Here, kid,' Harvey said, passing him a bottle. 'Take it easy.'

He watched tentatively as the boy sipped the water. His hand still gripped the bowl, waiting for the inevitable moment it would be needed. His relief when it didn't come was enormous.

The boy rolled over and appeared to go back to sleep. A few minutes later, there was another small 'Harvey?'.

'Yeah, Mike?'

'Thanks,' he said quietly.

'It's okay, kid.'

Mike smiled and closed his eyes. As minutes passed and the morning's gentle light brought Mike's features into relief, Harvey could see that the pained expression that had haunted them all night was gone. This time, when his own eyelids drooped, he did not fight it, and he fell into a deep, restful sleep, his hand still resting lightly on the boy's back.