I

Midtown, to Harvey Specter, is depressing enough without having to endure the repetitious jingle of a jackhammer slamming away at the pavement outside the room he sits in. A "conference room" is what the receptionist called it, but the dingy refrigerator humming at the corner and strong smell of curry wafting through the air has him suspecting otherwise. And worse, he can actually see people outside the windows, street casual tourists — a grim, almost literal reminder of how far down the firm has fallen. A third floor, Midtown client. He can't possibly think of anything worse.

"Remind me again why I'm here."

Mike Ross swivels around, the motion letting out a deafening squeal from the base of his chair. "For the clinic, which you said when I signed on —"

"I know what I said. And I meant I'd help with money, not my time — and especially not with my suits." Harvey lifts the underside of his jacket cuff up toward the fluorescents. "What is this? Ketchup?"

"Could be blood." Mike shrugs. "Probably won't come out either way."

"Goddamnit, Mike."

"Chill, Harvey. It's just a suit."

"This suit is worth more than the company we're defending."

"Probably." Mike says and leans in to add, "Now can you please pretend to have a heart for five seconds?"

Before Harvey can reply, shouts of greeting announce in the doorway the arrival of the Stavros brothers, David and Charlie, and their CFO, Donald Something-Or-Other. They shake hands, they laugh, they undo the buttons on their untailored Ralph Lauren jackets and take their squeaky seats.

The older Stavros, whether David or Charlie, Harvey can't be certain, looks through the lenses of thick, horn-rim glasses, first at Mike and then to Harvey, and says, rather seriously compared to the joyous mood he entered with: "We looked over the settlement you boys sent over, and pardon my language, but we feel you got us a shit deal."

Harvey awards the man's bravado with a thin smile. "Is that so?"

Young Stavros clicks his pen nervously, once, twice, click-click-click. Donald adjusts his cheap tie, pulling it too far to the left.

"You're partners at Pearson Specter Litt." Stavros tosses a stack of papers across the table. They fall in front of Mike and Harvey with a punctuating plop. "You can do better than this."

"Which part of the deal are you not satisfied with?" Mike asks. Harvey knows the kid has the settlement memorized front-to-back and could recite it verbatim, but Mike theatrically leafs through the document anyway.

"The payout, for a start," Older Stavros says. "Our company is worth considerably more."

"To you maybe," Harvey says. "But to everyone else your company isn't worth shit."

"Compared to the Fortune 500 companies you work for, Mr. Specter, I would have to agree, but an extra hundred thousand would make a huge difference to us. Is that too much to ask?"

"The offer in front of you was too much to ask."

"This offer is an insult."

"That's life. Dog eat dog."

"You think? Because what I think is you wouldn't be so dismissive if we were paying clients."

"Do I need to remind you how you got yourselves into this mess?" Harvey leans forward in his seat with an authority that causes the men sitting before him to shrink back. "You borrowed more money than you could afford and what we're proposing is the best you're going to get considering. Now if you have a problem with how we're handling things, by all means, seek other council. Perhaps Hendricks and Keller? They're probably the cheapest debt settlement attorneys you're going to get this side of Manhattan and even then I doubt you'll come out in the positive."

"Harvey." Mike's sternness is lukewarm, but Harvey winds it down regardless. He's done his part. If the idiots won't take the deal, that's on them. And Stavros, dense as he is, has a point, it's not like they're paying.

In an attempt to soften Harvey's blow, Mike says, "Look guys, your competitor dominates 95% of the market. This deal really is the best you're going to get."

"Dominated," Donald corrects. "ReachTek's stock plunged 30% just in the last hour."

This catches both attorneys off guard. A self-satisfied eyebrow lifts behind Older Stavros' spectacles. "You didn't know? The US Attorney issued the subpoenas this morning. ReachTek is rumored to be mixed up with the Duke-Sanger Illegal Arms Scandal."

Harvey nods slowly, awareness striking him. "And your stock?"

"Through the roof. Now are you going to get us a better deal or not?"

Harvey rises, pulling Mike up with him. "We'll look into it. But if what you're saying is true, you might not have to sell at all."

II

When Harvey gets back to the office he finds his secretary standing barefoot on top of his cabinets, one hand reaching up to the brim of a picture window, her calves sleek and corded from the strain of the weight at her tip-toes. His office smells faintly of her perfume, a scent she swapped out a few years ago and he hadn't realized how much he missed it until she began wearing it again. It touches something deeply cerebral in him. His shoulders relax and whatever stress he came in with seems to dissolve into something more manageable.

"Bugging my new office?" he asks, coming round to take a seat at the edge of his desk. He feels a small, twisting ache in his chest as she dances too close to the edge and has to fight his instinct to wrap his hands around her waist and be her support.

Donna glances down at him through a tumble of red hair, one pristinely plucked brow raised. "Don't be silly, Harvey. I bugged this office years ago."

He sees now that she has a tape measure clasped to the neckline of her dress and, of course, she answers his question before he even has to ask it: "The carpenter is coming today. I thought we could get a new set of cabinets for your balls."

"What's wrong with Jessica's old cabinets?" Mikes pipes in, strutting into the office with two fresh cups of coffee and the New York Times Business pages pinned beneath his arm.

"I was thinking walnut," Donna continues, ignoring the young lawyer, "but stained oak might work well in here."

"I always liked mahogany," Harvey tells her.

"And that is why I am making this decision and you are not." She surveys the floor, ready to climb down and Harvey offers her his hand. There is a moment of hesitation, long enough for him to regret the gesture, and she grabs his shoulder instead as she takes her leap. "So how did the meeting go?"

"Does it matter?" Harvey grabs one of the coffees off the Mike and takes a swig. Expecting a bitter kick, he instead gets a mouth full of frothy whip cream laced with something sweet and nutty like cinnamon.

"That…" Mike starts and then pauses, watching the cup sail into the trash. "Was for Rachel…"

"That was disgusting and she can thank me later."

Donna, doing an inelegant wobble on one foot in an attempt to strap on her Jimmy Choo, presses on, "Of course it matters. It was your first meeting as managing partner."

"For a pro bono client, which doesn't count." Harvey shrugs, trying to come off apathetic, but the red-head sees straight through him.

"You screwed it up, didn't you?"

"No." He glares at his secretary. Feeling childish but needing to defend himself, he adds, "Mike screwed it up."

"Oh, so I'm just supposed to know their main competitor was going to get subpoenaed this morning?"

"Yes. Because that's what I pay you to know."

The door pops open then. Louis is there, his canary-yellow tie rising and falling on his chest in sync with his labored breathing. "Harvey—thank god," he says. "We have a crisis."

"Is it a real crisis, Louis? Because I swear, if you're bursting in here to tell me we're out of fiber bars in the break room—"

"The justice department just subpoenaed three of our clients."

Harvey freezes. His lips thin into a hard line. "What the hell for?"

Not letting the mistake slide by him again, Mike ventures, "Duke-Sanger?"

Louis nods, a frantic bobble-head, chest puffed out like a distraught central park pigeon. "It's not just our clients either. Rand, Kaldor, Zane. Bratton Gould. Chupasko & Balderson. It's like goddamn Watergate."

Mike's eyes widen and he sets them on the managing partner sitting rigidly at the edge of his desk. "Harvey, we don't have the man power to fight these if they become cases."

The older man nods, feeling the weight of everyone's gaze and more so, the weight of firm. It presses against him, sinking into his gut. He is a balloon beneath a child's foot, stretched thin and misshapen. Was this how Jessica felt? He wonders, pinned down beneath a dirty chuck, forced to spill out of her parameters. God, if he could just be half the leader she was…

"The DoJ must not have anything concrete on Duke-Sanger," Harvey says with a calm he does not feel. "They're turning over every rock they can find, is all. We'll ride this out. In the meantime, I want a copy of every document they've subpoenaed. If there is any damning evidence I want to know about it before they do. And Mike—"

Someone clears their throat. Louis whirls around to face a man wearing a Knicks cap and a paint splattered plaid. "Who the hell are you?" he demands.

"I'm looking for Donna Paulsen."

"It's the carpenter," the red-head tells them, to the man she adds, "Would you mind giving us a minute?"

"Actually, I'm here to serve you this." He holds out a document. Harvey crosses the room in two great strides and snatches it from his hand.

From over his shoulder, Donna asks, "What is it, Harvey?"

"Anita Gibbs..." Harvey stares down at the document, reading and rereading its content in disbelief. When he looks back at Donna, his dark eyes are a gloss lacquer with a furnace blazing behind them. "She's summoning you to a deposition tomorrow morning."

"Gibbs?" The assistant U.S. attorney's name seems to hit Mike like a punch to the groin. "What does she want with Donna?"

"Apparently, she also holds valuable information regarding Duke-Sanger."

Louis steps further into the office, his chest even more inflated than before. The button beneath his lapel is certainly quivering at the added tension and his bottom lip quivers with it. He is either about to lash out in a fit of anger or burst into tears, and with the current state of Louis' emotions, Harvey suspects some catastrophic combination of both.

"That's bullshit!" Louis shouts. "She's going after Donna because of this fraud again, isn't she?" He lunges toward Mike but Harvey steps in his way, an immovable wall for him to crash his rage into.

"Louis," he says firmly. "You need to calm down."

"I WILL NOT—"

"Louis." Donna is at the enraged partner's elbow, and where Harvey is a wall, she is a shore that Louis anger falls flat against. He is an unthreatening puddle at her high-heeled feet. "It's not Mike's fault," she says. Her face is impressively blank, her voice surprisingly cool. Remembering the panic she expressed the last time she was subpoenaed, this placidity is not what Harvey was expecting. It's like she has become desensitized. Battle hardened. There are no frantic eyes searching out his, begging to be comforted. And although Harvey isn't the comforting type, he shamefully wishes she would cave. He needs her to need him.

"I used be a secretary at Duke-Sanger," she confesses.

Harvey knows this; although it has never been explicitly spoken of. It is like an ex-lover that he would rather pretend never existed and so they've always tip-toed around the subject.

Louis shakes his head, bewildered. "When?"

"Before Harvey."

Before Harvey. The statement seems to wash over the men like a cold wave. A Donna existed before Harvey? They just cannot fathom it.

"Maybe this is a good thing," Mike says, hesitating briefly under Harvey's scowl. "It confirms what you said—they're obviously desperate for information, and Donna's just another rock to turn over."

"You think Gibbs is going around deposing every secretary Duke-Sanger has had in the past fifteen years?" Being smart enough to know the question is rhetorical, Mike keeps his mouth shut, and Harvey continues, "Louis is right. This is personal. She must have seen Donna's name on a list and saw an opportunity to piss me off."

"So what are we going to do?" Mike asks, eager, probably even excited. Battling the DoJ on three separate cases, the fate of the firm hanging in the balance, Louis' suit button holding on by a single thread—this is why he took the job.

"You and Louis are going to find out everything you can about Duke-Sanger and this illegal arms scandal," Harvey tells him. "I'll handle Gibbs."

The two partners nod and leave the room. Harvey is finally able to let his stiff posture relax a little. His expression softens, and he says to Donna, "You don't need to be worried."

"I'm not worried," she tells him. "But I think it's a bad idea to go after Gibbs."

"Donna." His voice is a warning. "She can't just subpoena you because she feels like it."

"She can and she did. What she can't do is force you to react."

"So what am I supposed to do? Let her get away with it?"

"Is that so bad?"

"It puts you at risk."

"How?" She gives him a moment to respond, knowing full well he doesn't have an answer beyond his illogical, masculine need to protect what's his. "I don't know anything. I was a floor secretary. I hardly saw the outside of my cubicle the whole time I was at Duke-Sanger."

Harvey feels he is losing, but the mention of her past cubicle annoys him, so he bangs on. "Gibbs is a snake, Donna. She'll find a way."

"No, Harvey, she won't. You're managing partner now and I'm sorry, but you can't just drop everything and start throwing punches because someone pissed you off. Your job is here. If I find that I need an attorney, I'll call Rachel."

And with that she is walking out and there is just too much finality to it. It makes him uneasy, and so he calls after her: "Donna, wait."

She turns. Waits.

I'm sorry, is what he would tell her if he could. I'm sorry I put you in this position. But he's worried this will make her realize that this isn't the first time he's put her in a position like this, and likely not the last. She'll start thinking again on how she wants more, and he's terrified that this more means something else, somewhere else and he can't stand the thought of losing her.

"We should go with walnut," he tells her. "For the cabinets..."

"Walnut it is." She smiles, and this is exactly what he needed to ease him enough to let her go. "And this isn't your fault Harvey," she adds. "There's no need to be sorry."

III

The firm is still lit at half past eleven. Harvey is at his desk, sifting through an endless pile of documents when Mike appears at his door, tie undone, hair sticking out haphazardly. "This is bigger than we thought," the kid says. He falls onto the couch, splays out, kicks his feet up on the coffee table and waits for Harvey's attention.

"All right." Harvey leans back in his chair. "Lets have it."

"They've been financing a weapons manufacture in India-one that sells to Iran, which has been under an arms embargo since-"

"2006," Harvey cuts in. "Tell me something the six o'clock news doesn't know."

"Seventeen companies are being investigated. Four have been charged. They're saying the mastermind behind it is Johnathan Martell."

"Never heard of him," Harvey admits, which is strange because he knows everyone who is anyone in Manhattan. The fact that someone has gone under his radar is unsettling. "Who is he?"

"Currently he's some sort of independent contractor, but it's suspiciously unclear of what exactly he's contracted for. He was hired as an actuary at Duke-Sanger in 1999 after graduating from MIT with a masters in finance. Dude is apparently some kind of math genius and even more of an asshole than you are by the sound of things, but that's probably because his only child died and his wife left him - it's kind of a sad story actually."

"Spare me the tears." Harvey rises and makes his way over to the bar cart. "What else?"

"Nothing really." Mike lays his head back on the couch and looks up at the ceiling, reciting from memory: "He's 43, fire sign, plays the piano, grew up in some town called Wethersfield-"

Harvey pauses, scotch decanter in hand. "Wethersfield, Connecticut?"

"Yessir." Mike shifts his head and stares at Harvey through puffy, bloodshot eyes. "Is that important?"

"Donna lived in Wethersfield as a girl."

Mike hums, offering tiredly, "Small world."

"Yeah." Harvey agrees, but the lawyer in him realizes the world really isn't that small and something like this is too coincidental to be a coincidence.