Hi everyone! Sorry that I dropped off the face of the earth for awhile- I've been backpacking since late May and just got home, so I haven't really had steady internet access for quite some time. But I'm really excited to catch up with the fandom again, and can't wait til season 3 starts in like...9 days now :D Thanks for your patience.

Also this chapter is specially dedicated to phoenix on cloud nine as a belated birthday present. Happy birthday again, El! Hope you enjoy this guy :D Thanks for being a great friend *heart*

Mike's age in this chapter: 18

There may come a time you just can't seem to find your place

And for every door you open up, it seems like you get two slammed in your face

That's when you need someone, someone that you can call

And when all your faith is gone, it feels like you can't go on

Let it be me.

From "Let It Be Me" by Ray Lamontagne

Harvey was extremely tired.

He had been absolutely swamped the past few weeks because everybody suddenly wanted something from him (as they very damn well should; he wasn't the best closer in New York for nothing—but still, it was getting a bit excessive) —the Newton bank wanted to merge with the Sonnefields, one of Jessica´s prized clients had a teenage son who had gotten himself mixed up in some petty legal trouble and it was Harvey's job to make it go away, and he was currently trying to woo 3 different clients.

He loved his job; really, he did. But that didn't mean that he wasn't extremely relieved to finally make it home Wednesday night and throw on some sweats and crawl into bed, ready to get a full 8 hours of sleep for the first time in ages and recharge for the two days that remained in the week from hell.

This weighty, mind-numbing exhaustion was the reason that he almost didn't answer his phone when it rang in the middle of the night and roused him from his precious minutes of REM sleep. It took him a couple of rings to regain full consciousness, and he came awake with a muffled groan and a series of oaths muttered under his breath.

Blinking eyelids that weighed more than sandbags, he squinted through the darkness at the greenish glow of his alarm clock. 2:08. Who the hell was calling him at 2:08 on a Wednesday night? There was going to be absolute hell to pay if it was an incompetent associate or Louis calling him with a stupid paperwork question.

As the ringing continued, he debated answering or not. Maybe that client's son had gotten himself landed in jail this time, in which case it was probably best to deal with it now—but then again, maybe it was just a bunch of kids playing a prank.

Even as he thought this, he knew that he had to answer it or he wouldn't be able to fall peacefully back to sleep—it could be Mike calling for some reason, and he didn't want to miss it if it were something important. This phenomenon was what Donna had cheerfully nicknamed Harvey's "daddy-sense tingling" (it made Harvey cringe every time when she said it; after all, Mike was far more like Peter Parker in personality than Harvey would ever be), and despite the fact that Harvey hated Donna's descriptive choices, he couldn't deny that he worried about the teenager living all alone in a little apartment by Harvard, and he wouldn't be able to sleep well if Mike was in trouble and he didn't answer the kid's call.

So Harvey wearily pushed himself into a sitting position and pressed the "answer" button, hoping that if it was a telemarketer they'd at least announce that quickly so he could hang up and go back to sleep.

"Hello?" He said, his voice croaky and grumpy from sleep.

"Dad?"

Harvey was suddenly very glad he'd decided to answer, and he was also suddenly far more awake than he'd been before. He found that he was already on his feet and rummaging around for a pair of shoes and jeans before Mike could say anything else.

But the thing was, Mike didn't need to say anything else, because Harvey could instantly tell from the tight, strained tone of Mike's voice on that one little word that something was very wrong.

"Mike? What's going on, kid?" He said quickly, grabbing a pair of mismatched socks from his dresser and jamming them on his feet.

"Harvey," Mike said, his voice sounding a little wobbly now. "They…" he heard Mike hitch a breath and tried to recall the last time he'd seen or heard the eighteen-year-old sound so tearful or rattled. "They had a knife. They took all my stuff—my computer's gone."

Harvey felt his blood run cold, and he hurried into the kitchen to grab his wallet and keys and jacket. "Who had a knife, Mike? Where are you at right now? Have you called the police?" He tried to keep his tone gentle and calm, as both of them panicking right now would help nobody. He tried to focus on the fact that Mike had said 'had' a knife instead of the present tense 'have' a knife, but really he just didn't want Mike anywhere near anyone with a sharp weapon, past tense or present.

"I was walking home from the library late at night and they just… popped out from behind an alleyway and jumped me"—another slightly tearful sounding hitch of breath that made Harvey's chest ache—"and there were 4 of them and it was just me and I couldn't do anything because one of them covered my mouth and held a knife to my neck and said if I yelled for help they'd slit my throat and then they took all my stuff." Mike rambled, and Harvey made the snap decision to take the stairs down to the parking garage instead of the elevator. The stairs were faster, and the sooner he got himself to Harvard and could see Mike with his own eyes, the better.

"Okay," Harvey said, making his voice as soothing as possible, knowing that a rambley and hysterical Mike reacted well to gentleness, especially after his experiences in foster care with harsh guardians. "Are you alright, Mike? Did they hurt you?"

"N-no," Mike said, and Harvey thought he could hear Mike's teeth chattering. Damn. The last thing that the kid needed was to go into shock. "Just bruised me up a little bit. I'm okay," Mike said, and Harvey felt a surge of mutinous rage that anyone would dare lay a hand on his son in a violent manner. He swore then that he'd do whatever it took to ensure that the four people that had attacked Mike made it into a courtroom where Harvey himself was the prosecutor.

"Okay. Where are you right now, Mike?" He said, once again making sure to keep his voice even as he unlocked his car door and turned the key in the ignition, revving the car to life.
"I'm at a payphone outside the library," Mike sniffled. "But the library closed so I can't go inside for help. I called the police and they're on their way, so I should be okay," Mike said, and it would have been a lot more convincing that he'd "be okay" had his voice not risen at the end of the phrase and the sniffling on the other end not intensified significantly.

"Hey, it's alright to be upset right now, Mike," Harvey said, wondering when he, the ultimate hardass, had developed the ability to use this gentle of a tone of voice. Maybe he should just quit his job as a lawyer and begin reading children's bedtime books on tape from here on out. "You've been through a really rough ordeal tonight, but you're going to be okay now. You did the right thing by calling the police, and I'll be there as soon as possible. You're safe now, buddy."

Apparently the use of the word "buddy" was a bit too much for Mike to handle, because Harvey heard the beginnings of a first real sob on the other line and stepped on the gas a little harder, completely ignoring the speed limit signs flashing by his windows.

"You don't have to come all the way out here, Harvey," Mike choked out. "I'm okay; I can handle it. I don't know why I'm so freaked out,"—a watery laugh—"I think it's just a weird adrenaline thing and I didn't want to bother you in the middle of the night, but I just needed to hear your voice—"

"Mike," Harvey said firmly, wanting to put a stop to this nonsense. "I'm already on the road heading to Harvard as fast as I can. This is non-negotiable. I need to see you to make sure that you're okay, and I think you could use a visit from me too right now."

There was a brief second of silence before Mike heaved what sounded like a relieved sigh. "Thanks, Harvey," he began to say before his voice was drowned out by sirens in the background. "The police are here now." He announced unnecessarily and Harvey felt himself let out a breath that he didn't know he'd been holding. Now he knew that Mike would be in good hands for the time being until he could get there himself.

"I think you're going to have to hang up now, kid," Harvey said ruefully, not wanting to cut off contact with Mike when he was so upset but understanding that the police and medics needed to do their job to help Mike.

"Okay," Mike said weakly, suddenly sounding much younger than eighteen. "You'll be here soon?"

"As soon as I can," Harvey promised. "I'll meet you at the police station, okay? Are you going to be okay with the police there now?"

"Yeah," Mike said, his voice sounding a little bit more steady. Harvey relaxed further, grateful that Mike was such a tough kid and a strong person. He'd be okay once he got over the shock and adrenaline and terror of almost being killed. Harvey would make sure of it. "I'll be fine. Thanks for coming."

"Anytime, Mike," he said. "You know you can call me anytime." His voice might have gone a bit sappy suddenly, but the realization that Mike could have been killed in an alleyway at college while Harvey slept peacefully at home in New York was a chilling revelation that he had a feeling was going to keep him up a lot of nights in the near future.

"Bye, Dad. See you soon." Mike whispered. And then the line went dead and Harvey was left in silence with the long road ahead of him; a road that seemed to stretch endlessly on to Harvard, putting miles of distance between where he was currently and where he needed to be by his son's side.

As Mike sat and let the medic clean the cuts and scrapes covering his face and neck, idly swinging his legs against the examining table that they had conveniently tucked away in the back of the police station, he vaguely wondered if Dr. Miklos would fail him out of his Advanced Ethics class. The medic, a middle-aged man with an impressive mustache that hid his mouth so that it was impossible to tell if he was smiling or frowning, had given Mike some pretty heavy painkillers after he finished giving his statement. And he could definitely feel that they'd begun to take effect, that drowsy, dopey feeling beginning to overtake his senses and cloud over his thoughts.

But that would be bad if he failed Dr. Miklos' class. He was notorious for being Harvard Law's toughest and strictest professor and always found something to criticize in every paper and every answer given in class. Even though Mike was one of the students that he criticized the least, he was still a real stickler for not playing favorites and would have no sympathy for Mike, mugged or not. He'd probably just say something about how a good lawyer was always prepared, regardless of the circumstances, and chuck Mike right out of the lecture hall if he showed up to class tomorrow (or was it today already?) without turning in the 50 page paper that was due that day. The paper that he had just finished writing at the library a few hours prior. Granted, his eidetic memory meant that he remembered every word that he had written, but it was almost 5 in the morning, he was slightly (okay, maybe very) high on pain meds, and he didn't have a computer anymore since it had been stolen. So it didn't seem likely that he was going to be able to replicate the 50 page ethics paper in time for his 8 o'clock lecture. Which meant that he was probably going to fail.

It was kind of an odd thought to entertain—Mike had never failed anything academic before, had never even come close to failing. He wondered if Harvey would be disappointed. What if he failed out of Harvard? He had a sudden vision of himself spending the rest of his life working as a janitor at Pearson Hardman, being forced to follow Louis around and sweep up all the papers that he threw at the associates or on the ground for dramatic effect when he was angry. Louis threw a lot of papers at the associates, so Mike would probably get in a decent day's work. He found himself giggling a bit at this mental image, and was dimly aware of the fact that it was an odd thing to giggle at. Why was he here again?

"Well, I'm glad to see that you're able to find some humor in the situation," a familiar voice said wryly from the doorway.

This just made Mike laugh harder. "Dad!" He shouted jubilantly, hopping down off the table and hurrying over to throw his arms around Harvey, still chuckling at nothing in particular. He was pretty sure that he had been limping before, and wondered at the fact that he was now walking without any pain…must have been whatever the medic gave him. Now he felt really good. Kinda floaty and fuzzy, but good. Smart man, that medic.

"Good to see you!" Mike exclaimed after stepping out of the embrace that he had drawn Harvey into. He grabbed Harvey's hand and gave him a firm handshake. "Really good to see you around these parts, old chap."

Harvey looked a bit bemused as he gazed down at his hand, which Mike was still pumping cheerfully with an iron grip. He gave Mike a once-over, his eyebrows furrowing and his lips thinning as he took in the various visible scrapes and bruises that littered Mike's face and torso (when had he taken his shirt off anyway? He had no memory of that.), his gaze lingering in particular on the thin, shallow cut across Mike's throat from where the knife had slipped a little against his throat. Suddenly looking a bit pale, Harvey used the grip that Mike still had his hand in to pull Mike over to a plastic chair and usher him to sit.

Mike found himself oddly relieved to sit down again. He was tired now, his limbs numb and his head heavy. He could hear Harvey talking to the medic, but what they were saying wasn't making much sense. His head lolled against the wall and he felt his eyes drift shut as he listened to the familiar, comforting timbre of Harvey's voice and the voice of the mustached medic.

"—doesn't do very well with painkillers, we found that one out when he got his wisdom teeth out last year—"

"—should be okay by tomorrow…just bruising and some cuts, no concussion…the detective will call you if anything comes up…"

And then Harvey's voice was much closer to Mike. "—c'mon, Mike, let's get you home." Harvey was murmuring by Mike's ear, helping him stand. Mike swayed slightly on his feet as he struggled to multitask—standing and opening his eyes simultaneously was proving to be a lot of work in the middle of the night after pain meds and a traumatic mugging experience.

Harvey was pulling something over his head then, and it took Mike a minute to realize that it was his t-shirt, and that Harvey was essentially helping him get dressed like he was a toddler who didn't quite have the motor skills to find the right holes for his arms in his shirt. But he allowed Harvey to bundle him back into his shirt and jacket, and then followed the older man, who was still saying things every once in awhile in a low, soothing tone—Mike could see his lips moving but couldn't really process the specific words—outside in the cold and into Harvey's waiting car.

Mike didn't question where they were going—he was with Harvey so it didn't really matter—but he recognized his classroom buildings at Harvard as they drove by. He was resting his forehead against the window because the cold glass felt good on his bruised, aching skin, and he jolted himself so hard when he remembered that he had to be in class and turning in a paper in a few hours that he smacked his cheek against the glass.

Wincing, he turned to Harvey and then blinked for a minute, dizzy from all the sudden movement. He needed to tell Harvey about his essay—maybe Harvey wouldn't mind staying up and typing it out if Mike dictated it from memory. Granted, his processing speed wasn't so great right now so the end result probably wouldn't make sense, but it would be better to be turn in 50 pages of nonsense than nothing.

"I don't want to be Louis' personal janitor," was what he said instead, his voice earnest and concerned. "I might get a lot of paper cuts."

Harvey turned from the road for a brief second to give Mike a confused look. "Okay," he said. "Don't be Louis' personal janitor then."

"But what if I fail out of Harvard?" Mike asked, chewing on his lower lip until he remembered that it had been bleeding earlier and that he shouldn't be biting it, or else it would probably hurt a lot in the morning when the meds wore off.

"Are you in any real danger of failing out of Harvard right now?" Harvey asked, cautiously attempting to follow Mike's train of thought as he turned down the street that Mike's apartment was on.

"No…but Dr. Miklos might murder me if I show up to lecture this morning without my essay. I think he can breathe fire—he might be a dragon, you know," Mike chattered conversationally. "He always wears these heavy sport coats—seems suspicious to me. If I had a little pair of dragon wings I'd probably wear that kind of sport coat."

"I fairly certain that your professor is not, in fact, a dragon," Harvey reassured Mike, sounding amused.

"You don't know that! One girl asked him why he wore those sport coats and he said it was because he was cold," Mike said.

"That seems like a perfectly logical answer to me," Harvey said dryly.

"No, that sounds like the kind of answer that someone who was trying to hide the fact that they were a dragon would give," Mike said in a duh, it's completely obvious tone of voice.

Harvey's lips were twitching with laughter, but he just changed the subject, apparently sensing that it was a matter of great emotional upheaval for Mike at the moment. "Well, where's your essay?" He asked as he parked the car and got out. He came around to Mike's side and opened Mike's door for him, since Mike had clumsily been fumbling with the door knob and failing to open it on his own. Mike hated how helpless he felt, but his brain and his body weren't really cooperating at the moment.

"On my computer," Mike said sadly, thinking of his lost laptop.

"Oh," Harvey said. "If it makes you feel any better, I really don't think you'll be feeling up to going to class tomorrow. Once the medicine wears off you'll start to feel those bruised ribs—"

"No! I have to go, Harvey!" Mike exclaimed earnestly, trying to remember why it was so important. Oh yeah. "Because I don't want to fail…I want to be a good lawyer, like you, Dad!"

"Can you say that again for me on a tape recorder, please?" Harvey said, and Mike could hear a hint of laughter in his voice at the compliment before he got serious again. "Really, Mike, I don't think you're going to make it into class tomorrow."

"He's going to burn me alive," Mike moaned as they stepped into the elevator, imagining the look on Dr. Miklos' face when Mike had to explain that he didn't have the ethics essay. He repressed a shudder as the dim florescent light in the elevator flickered ominously. Mike was on the top floor and the elevator usually only worked 29% of the time (he had done the math), but they were fortunate tonight and the elevator started moving without incident.

He was expecting some kind of response from his father, perhaps a bit of sympathy or commiseration, but was disappointed when he looked over to see Harvey tapping away furiously on his phone and apparently not paying him any mind.

"There," Harvey said when he finally looked up. "That's all taken care of."

"What's taken care of?" Mike asked, hobbling out of the elevator and down the hallway to his door. He fumbled around for his keys—fortunately he had had them tucked into the discreet pocket on the inside of his jacket during the mugging so they hadn't been taken—and allowed Harvey to pluck them from his hands and nimbly unlock the door in a manner of seconds. Mike's coordination was off, so that was fine by him. The sooner he got to lie down and go to sleep, the better.

"Luckily for you, I had Dr. Miklos' as a professor when I did law here," Harvey said. "And he owes me a favor, so I emailed him and explained the situation. I'm sure he'll understand you needing an extension on your paper this once, particularly if the request is coming from me." He could hear the smug satisfaction in Harvey's voice, and relaxed when he realized that he could stop worrying about being Louis' janitor. He'd have to fashion Harvey some sort of superhero cape as a thank-you for saving him from a life of servitude to Louis.

"Dad," he said as a question occurred to him. "Would you keep me if I had to be Louis' janitor?"

There was a brief pause. "I don't know where you got the idea that someone is going to force you to clean up after Louis, but yes, of course I would keep you if you didn't make it through Harvard. Lawyer or no lawyer, legal adult or teenager, you're stuck with me, kid," Harvey said gruffly.

Mike fought the stupid grin that was threatening to cross his face, hiding it by stumbling across his dingy, tiny little studio and over to his bed as he struggled to get his arms out of his jacket.

"Thanks, Dad," he mumbled as he flopped down on top of the covers, tossing his jacket…somewhere. "Are you going back to New York now?"

"No," Harvey said, picking Mike's jacket up off the floor and shaking out the wrinkles. "Did you ever hear of a hanger?"

Mike mumbled something into his pillow about where Harvey could stick a hanger, but smiled when he felt Harvey tugging his shoes off and tucking them under the bed for tomorrow. He then felt the blankets being drawn up to his shoulders, and burrowed gratefully in their warmth, tucking his cold nose underneath the comforter. He was too cheap to pay to keep the heat on for more than a couple of hours a day, especially when he wasn't actually there in the apartment, so it was always freezing when he came back at night. He heard Harvey sigh and move over in the general direction of where the thermostat was located on the wall, presumably turning it on for the night.

"I'll be on the couch if you need me, Mike," Harvey said, his voice sounding weary. The edge of the painkillers had worn off just enough that Mike was capable of remembering that Harvey had driven a solid 3 hours to get there and was probably equally as exhausted as Mike. "I want to hear about everything that happened, but I think it can wait til morning when you're well-rested."

And then he flicked off the light.

The second that the room was plunged into darkness Mike felt his breath catch in his throat as he was thrown back into what had happened earlier that night in the alleyway. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to steady his panicked breathing, willing himself to think about something other than the way that the knife had glinted in the moonlight and how helpless he'd felt and the way that the cold snow on the ground had numbed his knees as they'd forced him to kneel while they kicked him and stole his wallet and his phone and his laptop. The only thing he could hear were his harsh gasps and the blood rushing through his ears. He was drowning; being swallowed by the darkness—

And just like that, it was all over.

The light was back on again, and Mike felt a dip in the edge of the bed as Harvey sat down, his voice soothing and his hand warm as it cupped Mike's cheek.

"—you're okay, Mike," Harvey was murmuring gently, his solid presence giving Mike something to focus on as he gradually calmed his breathing.

"I'm sorry, buddy," Harvey said when Mike was calm, his hand moving up to smooth the hair off Mike's forehead. "We can leave the light on—I should have known you wouldn't want to be in the dark after what happened tonight. Do you want to talk about it?"

Mike just shook his head. He would talk about it tomorrow, in the light of the day when it was further away from right now. He just wanted to sleep now; to forget that any of this mess ever happened.

"Tomorrow," he said sleepily, noticing the bags under Harvey's eyes and the 5 o'clock shadow smudged on the lower half of his face. "You'll stay for the rest of the night?" He asked, hating how childishly uncertain he sounded but needing the validation. He tamped down a bit of the guilt he felt at pulling his dad away from New York in the middle of the night.

"Of course," Harvey said, standing and smoothing an imaginary wrinkle from the blanket. "I've got one hell of a safety lecture to give you tomorrow, and I need to be well-rested to ensure proper delivery. I'll be right on the couch if you need me."

"Thanks for coming," Mike mumbled sincerely, his eyes drifting shut. "I wish Harvard wasn't so far away from home," he said wistfully.

Harvey made a noise of assent. "Do you want me to leave the lamp on?"

Mike thought about it for a minute. "Nahh," he said. He wasn't really afraid anymore— if nightmares came, Harvey would be right there to chase them away.

"You sure?"

"Yeah," Mike said. I don't need the light on with you here to keep me safe, Dad.

Whoops. He might have said that last bit out loud. That was embarrassing.

But Harvey just flipped the lamp off in response, ruffling Mike's hair affectionately one last time before padding over to the couch. Mike allowed a tired smile to cross his face, rolling over to find a comfortable position, wincing as his sore muscles pulled slightly. It had been a few hours, and he was starting to feel those bruises, just as the medic had warned. He sure was glad that he didn't have to get up in two hours for his lecture.

As he drifted off peacefully, he wondered what kind of favor Dr. Miklos owed Harvey, but decided that maybe it was best that he didn't know. Harvey had a habit of proving his legendary badass-ery in the most unexpected of moments, and it was one of Mike's favorite parts of being Harvey's son that he often got the opportunity to see Harvey in full-out best-closer-in-New-York mode, taking down names and pulling out hidden cards that nobody knew he was holding and just overall kicking ass.

He almost felt a little sorry for the guys who had jumped him—if Harvey got his hands on them, which he probably would somehow…well, Mike had great pity for them because he knew they'd walk away from the encounter regretting that they'd jumped him.

He grinned into his pillow. His dad was a bit of a crazy egomaniac/workaholic with really awful taste in modern art and a complete inability to cook anything edible, but Mike was pretty sure he'd keep him anyway.