Disclaimer: I do not own Suits or any of the recognizable characters... I'd love to own Harvey Spector though if that can be arranged.

P.S. Did anyone else almost feel bad for Louis last night? Because I did... up until the end that is...

"Wise men say only fools rush in
But I can't help, falling in love with you."
-Elvis

The first thing Mike Ross did when he and Spencer left Pearson Hardman was to decide that he was going to take Spencer out to lunch. He highly doubted that she had eaten that morning and from the looks of it she hadn't eaten in a while. He shook his head, biting back a lecture about how she should have taken better care of herself. He knew that she knew she should have and he also knew that right now what she really needed was a friend, someone to tell her everything was okay, not a lecture that made it seem as if her best friend was disappointed with her. And honestly, he wasn't disappointed with her; sure it had taken her four years to finally decide enough was enough, but at least she was finally taking a stand. She was finally fighting the battle. "What?" Spencer asked, watching the way Mike seemed to be studying her, a small smile resting on his lips.

Mike shook his head and wrapped his arm around Spencer's shoulders, pulling her closer to his body. "Nothing," he said, leaning down so that he could press a kiss to the top of her head. "I was just wondering if you were hungry." Spencer knew that that was a lie, but she decided she wasn't going to push it. If Mike wanted to keep what he was really thinking from her she would let him, she had a feeling that he was keeping it from her to keep her from being upset anyway, so she would allow it. She nodded in response to his statement and Mike smiled a real smile. "I should have known you were," he said, shaking his head. "You were always hungry in high school. Let's go get pizza."

"And beer?" Spencer asked, it was only one in the afternoon, but she had had a hard day and she felt as though she deserved a beer.

Mike smiled at her and nodded. "And beer," he said, shaking his head. "You alcoholic," he added jokingly. Spencer laughed and reached her left hand out, gently pushing him in the side and causing him to stumble because he was caught of guard. "Hey!" Mike chuckled as he began to walk in a straight line again. He laughed when he saw the almost happy look on his friend's face. They hadn't seen each other all too often since she had gotten married and even when they did see each other she had never looked truly happy. It was refreshing to see her look happy now. It was as though all she had needed was to tell someone the truth about what was going in her life and a weight was lifted off her shoulders. At that moment Mike did not care that bringing her to Harvey might end up badly, he would do it again just to see Spencer look happy again.

"I've missed you, Mikey," Spencer said softly, surprising Mike by voicing the same thought he was thinking. "Like a lot. I've missed this. You know, just hanging out and having fun. You understand me in a way no one else does. And I've missed that. Can you promise me something?" Mike nodded, silently vowing that he could promise the woman next to him anything. "Promise me you will never let me lose you again?"

"You never lost me to begin with, Spence," he said softly as he turned a corner, leading her toward his favorite pizza place in the city. "And you never will, you don't need to worry about that. I'm staying right here." Spencer nodded, but she didn't look like she quite believed him. Mike stared down at her before he shook his head. "To be honest I felt like I lost you," he said softly. Spencer looked up at him with wide, confused eyes. Mike sighed, "You were my best friend in high school," he said softly, trying to find a way to say this without hurting her feelings. "And then you met John, you got married way too fast and then you just kind of disappeared. I'd see you every once in a while, but something always seemed wrong and you never wanted to talk about it. That hurt. I thought you didn't need me anymore."

"I will always need you, Mike," Spencer said softly, shaking her head in protest to Mike's statement. "Even when I was staying away from you I needed you." Mike stared at her, his eyes scanning over her face, silently asking her why she hadn't told him about her problems at home if she had truly needed him. "I didn't want you to get hurt, Mike," she said softly. "I knew that if I told you that you might try to do something stupid like beat John up or try to have him arrested. He's got these ... goons is the best word I can think of, and they take care of problems like you for him. I didn't want you to do anything rash and then be taken care of. It was better for you if I stayed away from you."

"But I wasn't the one who needed to be protected," Mike argued softly as he led her into the grimy looking pizza parlor. "And I would have found a way to protect you."

"I know you would have," Spencer admitted, staring down at her feet in shame. "But for a while I thought I could take care of myself. I needed to be able to take care of myself. I wasn't ready to admit how weak I really was." Mike stared at her for a moment before he shook his head and slipped a hand under her chin, gently forcing her face up until she was looking at him.

"You. Were. Not. Weak," he said, making each word it's own sentence, hoping that she would hear his conviction behind the words. "You were strong, so much stronger than you needed to be. Asking for help does not make you weak, it just means that you are smart enough to realize that you can't do something on your own."

Spencer gave him a small grim smile before allowing her eyes to dart away from her friend's intense gaze. "Then I've been pretty stupid for a long time," she said softly before pulling her chin out of Mike's grasp. Mike wanted to contradict her, to tell her that he had not meant that she was stupid, but he could see that she was ready to be done with that conversation. So instead he silently shook his head and gestured toward the menu on the wall.

"I know this place looks kind of gross," he said simply, "but I promise you that it is the best pizza in the city." Spencer nodded at him, silently thanking him for changing the subject before she walked up to the cashier to place her order. Two slices of the supreme pizza. Mike smiled, glad that she had ordered two slices, the slices at this place were huge and he was going to make sure that they did not leave until she had eaten every bite of her pizza. He ordered the same thing and shook his head when Spencer tried to take out her wallet at the cash register. "I'm taking you out to lunch, Spence," he said with a smile. "As the invited member of our party you are not expected to pay."

"But -" Spencer started, but Mike cut her off with a wave of his hand as he handed over a ten dollar bill, telling the cashier that he did not need any change.

"You're my client now, Spencer," he said with a sneaky smile. "If I wanted to I could bill this lunch to the firm and write it off as an attempt to woo you."

"You're wooing me are you?" Spencer asked playfully as she followed Mike to a table by the window so that they could watch what was going on out on the busy street outside of the parlor. Mike quickly walked to the drink machine and filled two cups with ice and coke before walking back to the table. Spencer smiled when he placed one of the cups in front of her. "Is that what a first year associate does?" she asked after taking a sip of her coke, "Wooing clients and all of that?"

"It's a little bit about wooing," Mike said with a nod and a smile. "But mostly I do research and I leave the wooing to Harvey. He's better at it than I am."

"He was quite charming this afternoon," Spencer admitted, taking another sip of her coke. "Nothing like the uncaring grump you had led me to expect." Mike nodded silently thinking back to their meeting as a waitress brought their pizza to the table. Harvey had surprised Mike that afternoon too. He had always had a feeling that Harvey's I don't care attitude had been bullshit, but he had never expected Harvey too look at Spencer with the caring look in his eyes like he had done that afternoon. It was that one look that had convinced Mike that they were going to win the case - Harvey cared enough about Spencer that he was going to make sure of that much.

-.-.-.-.-

"I still can't believe it," Spencer said with a giggle later that afternoon. She and Mike were sitting on the couch in his apartment, they had been talking about the old days and their friends from high school when Mike had finally told her how he had started working for Harvey Spector. "I mean, I guess in the back of my mind I knew there was no way that you went to law school since you were expelled during undergrad, but I never expected this!" Mike glanced at her, worried that she was going to judge him or be disappointed at him, but the wide grin on her face told him just the opposite. "You're kind of a badass, Mikey," she said softly, reaching out and softly cuffing his jaw with her fist.

"Why do you sound so surprised, huh?" Mike asked, pretending to take offense in her statement. "I was a badass in high school too." Spencer scoffed, and Mike started laughing. He had been the complete opposite of a badass. He had been the kid who was more likely to spend his weekend in the library tutoring kids for free than having fun on his days off from school. It was actually thanks to Spencer and Trevor that Mike could honestly say that he had had any fun in high school. Although, Trevor's brand of fun had usually ended up getting Mike in trouble. Mike smiled at the woman sitting next to him when he came to a realization that, if he was being honest with himself, he had always known.

"What?" Spencer asked, suspicious of the way Mike was looking at her. "What is running through your mind, Ross?"

"You're my best friend, Spence," Mike said as if that was a complete surprise to him. Spencer rolled her eyes, looking at Mike with her eyebrows raised, clearly thinking that the boy in front of her was an idiot. Mike shook his head, "You really are. I always thought that Trevor was my best friend, but it's you. It's always been you. If Trevor had truly cared about me he would never have convinced me to do things that would get me in trouble. But you ... you always took care of me, watched out for me, kept me out of trouble. You were the one who honestly cared about me. You were my best friend, not him."

Spencer smiled at him before she shifted her position on the couch so that her back was leaning against Mike's chest. She then took Mike's arms and wrapped them around herself, forcing him to hug her not that he considered it much of a chore. "It took you this long to figure that out?" she asked him, tilting her head back so that she could look him in the eye. "And you call yourself a genius," she scoffed.

Mike smiled down at her and leaned his head down so that he could place a soft kiss on her head. "You should take a nap," he said softly, reaching up to gently brush some hair out of her eyes. "You don't look like you've gotten a whole lot of sleep lately."

"That would be because I haven't," Spencer said with a shrug. "I don't sleep well when he's there and I don't sleep well when he's gone."

Mike nodded, sighing when he looked at the dark circles under her eyes. "Well, you can sleep well now," he said softly, running one of his hands through her long hair. "Because he's not going to hurt you anymore."

Spencer shook her head, struggling to keep her eyes open. It was easier for her to pretend she wasn't tired when the entire conversation did not focus around the fact that she hadn't slept. "It's not even that," she said softly, shaking her head again. "When he was there I was too nervous to sleep because I didn't like him being that close, but when he wasn't there I was nervous because I didn't know when he was going to come back or what kind of mood he was going to be in. But most of all ... I was afraid of waking up alone, which makes no sense considering that I was probably safest when he wasn't around."

Mike leaned over so that his blue eyes could meet Spencer's green ones. "You have nothing to worry about," he said, his voice heavy with conviction. "He's not going to show up when you're napping and you're not going to wake up alone. I will be right here, I'm not going anywhere. I promise." Spencer looked up at him for a moment before she nodded and snuggled closer to Mike's chest. Mike nodded and continued to silently run his fingers through Spencer's long brown hair until her breathing had evened out, signifying that she had finally fallen asleep. Mike bent his head down, pressing a soft kiss onto the top of her head. "I love you Spence," he whispered before he continued to brush her hair with his fingers.

He didn't know how long he stared down at her finally peaceful face before he finally fell asleep as well. But he did know that in the minutes before he fell asleep he was filled with more anger than he had ever felt in his life. He was angrier at John Avery than he had ever been at Trevor after the botched drug deal, or at Harvey when he was being an asshole. He was livid ... livid that was a word that Mike had never thought of before, but it definitely summed up how he felt about the son of a bitch who had broken his friend so badly that she was afraid to fall asleep. He running his fingers through her hair when he realized they were shaking in anger. He tried to calm himself down, he tried to think of what Harvey would say about this situation. He could picture the senior partner in his head as if the older man were standing in the middle of his living room, not only judging him for the general state of crappiness his apartment was in, but also for how involved Mike had let himself get. "She doesn't need an angry lawyer," vision Harvey was saying. "She needs a good one with a clear head that can win her case."

Mike nodded, he would wait until after they had won the case to get angry. Until then he would be clear-headed and calm. And then once Harvey had successfully put John Avery behind bars Mike would visit him in jail just so that he could punch the bastard in the face and give him a taste of his own, what was the word Spencer had used ... punishment? Yeah, punishment. And with that happy thought in his head Mike had finally been able to fall asleep.

He didn't sleep for long though. He was woken up shortly after he had closed his eyes, but at first he had no idea what had woken him up. He glanced at the clock on his cable box and noticed that it was almost five in the afternoon. But that gave him no hint as to why he had woken up with such a sudden start. And then he felt it, Spencer quivering in his arms. He glanced down and saw that his friend was crying in her sleep, gripping his arm as if it were her lifeline. "Spencer?" he asked softly, calmly, he was trying not to frighten her or upset her anymore than she already was.

"Please," she whispered in her sleep, flinching away from Mike's chest. "Just leave me alone."

"Spencer," Mike said again, gently freeing his arm from her grasp if only so that he could reach out and cup her face in between both of his hands. "It's just me, it's just Mike. I need you to wake up, Spence. You're just having a bad dream. Wake up."

Spencer's eyes opened, revealing a pair of timid, scared, watery green eyes. "Mike," she whispered, her voice cracking in a way that Mike would never be able to forget, no matter how hard he tried. Spencer took a deep calming breath and buried her head in his chest, fisting his t-shirt in her hands as if she was afraid that he was going to pull away from her.

"I'm right here," Mike said softly, running his hands up and down her back while trying to calm her down. "Don't worry. What's going on in your head? Talk to me."

Spencer sobbed for a minute or two more before she pulled away from Mike, wiping her eyes and trying to look as composed as possible. "I'm sorry," she said softly, looking embarrassed at her outburst. She tried to climb out of Mike's lap, but he wouldn't let her. She sighed before turning around to look at her friend. "What do you want from me, Mike?" she asked him, sounding deflated and weaker than she wanted to sound.

"It's okay, you know," Mike said softly, looking into his friend's fear filled eyes. "To not always be in control. To be afraid, that's okay. Everyone has those moments and if you ask me you deserve to have one now. No one's going to judge you for crying about this ... you've been through a traumatic couple of years and it's not over yet, he's not going to make this easy for you. It's okay to cry."

Spencer stared at him for a few moments before she shook her head. Mike wasn't sure what he had expected from her after his statement but as he watched her struggle to stand up on her heels ... even though she had looked relaxed that afternoon she had not changed out of her heels and pencil skirt, he realized that this is what he should have expected. Spencer had always wanted to seem strong, and she was a strong woman. But she had always been wrong about one thing, even the strongest women had their moments of weakness, that didn't make them any less strong, it simply made them seem more real. Mike wanted to teach that to Spencer, but he could tell by the set of her lips that now was not the time to do so.

"You could stay here you know," he said softly as he watched her reach for her purse. "For the night, if you're afraid of going home alone."

"I'm not afraid of going home alone," she said softly, shaking her head and not making eye contact with her best friend. She didn't need him to be able to tell she was lying to him. "It's after five, he's gone. I need to be able to start packing up my stuff anyway." Mike nodded silently, standing up and walking with her to the door of his apartment. She turned around to look up at him when she reached the door. "Thank you for the offer though," she said, tilting her head up so that she could place a soft kiss on his cheek. "Thank you for everything," she added in an even softer tone.

Mike nodded and watched her open the door. As she stepped out into the hallway he reached out and gently grabbed on to her hand. She turned around to look at him, surprise evident in her green eyes, she thought he was going to ask her to stay again and to be honest she didn't know if she would be able to say no this time. But Mike had a different request. "Just call me," he pleaded softly, "if something happens, if something feels wrong, if you get scared. Call me?" He looked at his friend's face, concerned eyes scanning ever centimeter of it, pausing on the bruise on her cheek. "Please?" he added, sounding almost broken.

Spencer nodded, "I promise," she said, giving his hand a soft squeeze before she let go of it. He watched her walk down the hallway to the stair and once she was out of sight he walked to his window that faced the road outside of the building so that he could make sure that she made it safely into a cab. He watched her stick her hand up in the air and he smiled when three cabs stopped, one of them with extremely screechy brakes, each of them hoping she would be their fare. She picked one and opened the back door, she turned to look up at his apartment and waved at him before she slipped into the back seat. Mike sighed, trying to swallow the nervous feeling he had now that she was no longer within sight.

But no matter what he did, the feeling did not go away.

And that's all folks!
I hope you liked it! There was very little Harvey in this one, but there will be a good deal of him in the next one.
Anyway, please review to let me know what you thought.
Reviews = Love.
And I like love... makes me update faster... just saying.
Anyway... I'm out.
- Addison.