So...the first chapter of this was the first thing I ever attempted to write and I've done a good chunk of writing since then, so there might not be a lot of continuity in my writing style between the two chapters XD But people will sometimes randomly follow/favorite this story or ask me to continue it, and I got this plot bunny in my head and just had to write a second part, so here it goes- and it's a long chapter too :D I'm going to keep it marked as 'complete' because at this point I don't have any set plans for a third part, but I suppose you never know where the muse is going to take you. Hope you guys enjoy!

CHAPTER 2: Easier to Lie

And do what's right
When everything is wrong
It's easier to run
It's easier to never have to look you in the eye
It's easier to lie

-From "Easier to Lie" by Aqualung

It starts out with small things.

Like the way that Mike's leg jiggles during meetings now, for example. Harvey has always likened his associate to a puppy, and basically everyone who has met Mike agrees that it's an accurate metaphor. So it's to be expected that Mike is somewhat twitchy and wriggly when forced to sit still for long periods of time, because he's never really grown out of his boyish energy. But this is different than normal restless motion—different from the way that Harvey paces around his office or tosses his baseballs when he's thinking, different from Donna absentmindedly tapping her pen against her coffee cup as she schedules Harvey's meetings on the phone, and different from the way that Louis chomps down on his gum when he's proofreading particularly tricky briefs.

It's different because Mike never used to do it. And now that he's started, he can't stop and he can't control it.

Harvey barely notices at first. He's used to Mike loosening and pulling at his ridiculous skinny ties during meetings to entertain his hands while his brain is elsewhere occupied whizzing through legal information. He's accustomed to the way that Mike sometimes swivels his chair from side to side when talking to a client to give shake out his tense limbs. He's even grudgingly accepted the fact that, no, Mike will not refrain from chewing on pen caps during depositions, even if they're the nice kind of pens that Harvey bought for himself (only to then have Mike steal them and gnaw on them).

But then one day when he and Mike are sitting in a remarkably boring meeting with Jessica and an irate client, Harvey notices that his chair is shaking slightly, as is the end of the conference table that he and Mike are sitting at. Jessica is doing all the talking, trying to soothe Mr. Collins, so Harvey doesn't really need to pay any attention. He and Mike are here as a mere formality, since they are the ones who will actually be representing Mr. Collins in court. He and Mike know this case inside out, and Mr. Collins' fear that they've been unfairly assigned a particularly tough judge on purpose is completely unwarranted, so Harvey feels no remorse about tuning out and letting Jessica handle this one.

He subtly looks around, trying to figure out why the table and his chair are vibrating, before realizing that it's because Mike is bouncing his left leg up and down and his knee keeps hitting the table. He jabs Mike in the side and passes him a hastily-scrawled note.

Unless you want to pay the damages from creating an earthquake that knocks this building over, you'd better keep both your feet firmly planted on the ground.

Mike scans the note and looks slightly nonplussed, as though he hadn't realized that he was jiggling his leg at all, much less jiggling it with enough force to shake the table and Harvey's chair. He shrugs in Harvey's direction and crosses his legs so that they aren't moving any longer.

Harvey turns back and resumes the pretense of pretending to listen to Jessica and Mr. Collins, pleased with his ability to make Mike obey him. Maybe he has some hope of curbing his associate of his annoying habits yet. He notices out of the corner of his eye, however, that Mike has replaced the leg-jiggling with drumming his fingers against the table in agitation, and within 5 minutes Mike has uncrossed his legs and resumed bouncing the left one as though it's on fire and he can't sit still.

Harvey wants to chastise Mike, but it seems like the younger man genuinely can't help his restless movements. The meeting ends before Harvey gets a chance to harass Mike and figure out what's going on, so Harvey just files the incident away in his mind for further reflection.

In the days that follow, Harvey suddenly notices that Mike is doing it all the time and he wonders how long this has been going on before he noticed. It's like Mike has suddenly developed Restless Leg Syndrome, and Harvey desperately hopes that Mike hasn't been popping Ritalin or Adderall or something even worse to make up for not being allowed to smoke weed anymore. After all, it had been bad enough when the kid had slipped up after his grandmother's death a few months ago and started smoking again then. The last thing Mike needs to be dealing with right now is any other kind of substance abuse, especially when he's already trying to hide the massive secret that he never actually went to law school or even graduated from college.

There are other strange symptoms afoot that only add to Harvey's suspicions about what might be going on in Mike's life—Mike looks absolutely exhausted most of the time, for one, but yet somehow he's constantly wired with an unending stream of nervous energy that makes him incapable of sitting still, like an addict jonesing for a fix. And Harvey could swear that when Mike ran a hand through his hair last week, he saw a chunk of it fall out. He's more ramble-y than normal, and for someone who has an incredible memory, he's all of a sudden prone to repeating stories more than once, as though he can't remember who he's told what story to anymore. None of this is terribly noticeable or overt, but Harvey spends a lot of time with Mike so it all registers in his mind, and after Mike tells him the same joke twice in one week, Harvey adds 'repetition' to his steadily growing list of Things Mike Has Been Doing Recently That Aren't Consistent with Typical Mike Behavior.

And then there's the morning that Mike comes in to work late and with a strange bruise on his cheek when everything finally slots into place.

"Mike's ETA is approximately 10 seconds," Donna notifies him over the intercom. "I know you're mad that he's late, but go easy on the puppy, Harvey. He looks like he's had a rough night."

Harvey rolls his eyes at the way the Donna coddles Mike and barely looks up when the fake lawyer in question quietly enters the office, sidling up to Harvey's desk guiltily.

"Here are the files you wanted for the Martin consultation this morning," Mike says, and his words sound a little strange, as though his tongue is slightly numb with Novocain from the dentist.

"Care to tell me why you're giving them to me now at 9 o'clock instead of at 8 like I asked—" Harvey begins asking but the words die in his throat when he looks up at Mike for the first time since the younger man entered the office. Mike's left cheek has a nasty, painful-looking bruise on it, and he looks absolutely exhausted. Harvey frowns, hoping that Mike hasn't gotten himself mixed up in the world of drugs and dealing again. But unfortunately, all the signs seem to be pointing towards something of that nature—the nervous energy, the falling-out hair, the exhausted gaze, the mysterious bruises…

"We need to talk," Harvey says firmly. Mike looks frightened. Harvey doesn't want to do it—he doesn't want to care about anything going on in Mike's personal life, but he can't let something like this go. He has to get to the bottom of this, and even if he doesn't want it to be true that Mike's becoming some sort of addict, he owes it to the kid to get him some help if it turns out to be the case. Now that Mike's grandmother is gone and Trevor is out of the picture, Harvey and Donna are the only people left in the kid's life. And Harvey knows that he won't be able to live with his conscience if he lets alarming behavior like this slide by unnoticed. Mike needs to know that there are people still out there who give a damn about his wellbeing and that he can't get away with drowning his sorrows in drugs. And even if it turns out that it isn't drugs, something is clearly going on with his associate and Harvey feels the weight of responsibility on his shoulders, like a heavy stack of law books, to find out what it is.

He doesn't know why, exactly—after all, when he'd set out to look for an associate, he'd just wanted someone who would get the work done with no fuss and minimal amounts of smarmy ass-kissing. He hadn't expected Mike to come bursting into that hotel suite, toting that briefcase full of weed and a whole lot of emotional baggage behind him. When he'd hired the kid, he'd done it because he was impressed by Mike's mind and confidence—and now Mike had somehow wormed his way under Harvey's skin and he was stuck there, despite Harvey's best attempts to avoid getting attached.

So Harvey can't let this go on—Mike had been loyal to him during the D.A. scandal and he'd stuck by Harvey during the Hardman fiasco, so now it's Harvey's turn to repay the favor by pressing the issue until it hurts. The words tough love flash across his mind, causing memories of his own to bloom beneath his eyelids, swirling headily and drawing out a scene from when Harvey was much younger—practically still a teenager. As he regards Mike, sitting in front of him and looking so tense that he might strain something, he remembers himself sitting in much the same position in front of his father at age 20, shamefacedly confessing to getting a drinking ticket and asking for the money to pay off the fine. His father had said no, had told Harvey that he was the one who had messed up so he was the one who was going to get himself a job and earn the money to pay off his court fees and his ticket. Harvey had been enraged at the time and had thought his father was being too harsh and unforgiving—after all, Harvey had admitted that he had screwed up; why wouldn't his dad help him? What he hadn't understood at the time was that that had been tough love right there—that his dad had wanted him to learn to pick himself back up when he fell; to learn from the consequences of his actions so that he took responsibility for himself and didn't make the same mistake again. And that was when Harvey had gotten himself a job in the mail room of Pearson Hardman. And that was when he had meet Jessica Pearson.

He flashes forward to the present, almost 20 years later. Mike is still staring at him expectantly, his gaze wide with fear—the kid is definitely hiding something and if Harvey's been reminded of anything this morning, it's that subtlety certainly isn't a strength of Mike's. He opens his mouth to begin sorting out what's going on when—

"Harvey, Ms. Martin is here," Donna calls over the intercom. Harvey swears under his breath and Mike looks utterly relieved as Hannah Martin enters the office, completely unaware of what she has just interrupted.

Harvey gets lost in a vortex of complex legalese then. It's comforting, in a way; being able to drown out all of his own problems and work on fixing someone else's—because this, this he can handle. He knows what to do when a managing partner wants to back out of a merger at the last second. He doesn't know what to do with an associate who might have some very real problems going on in his personal life, however.

But when Mike starts spouting off various clauses and gesturing emphatically at the contract, he seems like the same old Mike as ever and Harvey forgets about the whole situation for awhile. That is, until…

"Michael, would you mind not shaking the table like that? It's making it hard to read this contract," Hannah Martin asks Mike kindly. She and Mike are seated in the two chairs in front of Harvey's desk and Mike's leg is bouncing as quickly as ever, his motions jarring the desk slightly.

"Sorry, Ms. Martin," Mike says politely, but he doesn't stop moving his leg.

"Mike," Harvey says firmly. "Stop moving your leg."

Mike looks up at Harvey, his eyes wide. He suddenly looks much younger than 28. "I can't," he says quietly. "I can't stop, Harvey." He sounds frightened now, and it makes Harvey's chest ache strangely.

Harvey looks from Mike's shaking leg to his twitching hands to the bruise on his face to the strange way he had spoken when he had entered the office and suddenly all the pieces slide into place and everything makes sense. He feels a deep, jarring sense of relief that it's not drugs like he had suspected. But this relief is mixed with an equal amount of concern as the revelation of what is really going on hits him. He wonders how on earth it had taken him so long to catch on, because now it all seems so obvious.

"Okay," Harvey says, taking things in stride. "Okay," he repeats as though it's not a big deal and he hasn't just suddenly realized why Mike's been acting so strangely lately. "Mike, will you go get Hannah and I some coffee while we finish up here?"

Mike nods gratefully and ducks out of the office. Hannah watches him leave, her lovely face wrinkled in concern. "Is he alright, Harvey?" She's a kind woman, very maternal. Harvey could probably tell her the truth; she wouldn't care and she'd be very understanding. But it's really none of Harvey's business to go around spilling Mike's private life to random clients.

"Yes, he's fine," Harvey lies. "Just a little over-caffeinated. He was here late last night working and he probably drank about two pots of coffee this morning to make up for it."

They finish up their meeting shortly thereafter, which is good because Harvey can't concentrate any longer. As soon as he shows Hannah to the elevator, he turns on his heel and heads back to his office, hoping to catch Mike there with the coffee.

Mike is just leaving as Harvey walks up to his office door.

"Oh, hey, Harvey," he says casually, but he is talking quickly and looks nervous. "I left the coffees on your desk; I'm just going to go—"

"Oh, no, you don't," Harvey says, dragging Mike back into his office by the sleeve of his suit jacket and shutting the door. Donna looks up from her desk, her expression curious. Harvey subtly shakes his head at her, his expression grave, and he sees her unplug the intercom. He knows it'll kill her to not hear every word being exchanged, but she knows when to butt out. He'll be too self-conscious to say what he needs to say if he knows that Donna is listening and might make fun of him for 'caring' later.

"Sit," he instructs Mike simply, and Mike does as he is bade. Normally he flops all over Harvey's office furniture without a care in the world, but today he perches tentatively on the edge of the sofa, his arms folded in his lap and his right leg bouncing nervously.

"Harvey, I really should be getting back to work—"

But Harvey isn't called the best closer in New York for nothing, and these basic diversion tactics haven't worked on him for years. "Have some coffee, Mike," he says, thinking of the strange way Mike had spoken earlier that morning; like his tongue was numb. He walks over to his desk and grabs the two hot mugs. "You can have Ms. Martin's since she left."

Mike shakes his head. "No thanks, Harvey. I don't want coffee today."

But Harvey brandishes the mug in Mike's face until he begrudgingly takes it out of Harvey's hands. "You look exhausted and it's disturbing to the clients. Plus you need the caffeine if you're going to be of any help to me today. Drink."

Mike's eyes dart around for a moment as he tries to come up with a plausible excuse for why he can't drink the coffee, but finding none, he takes a reluctant sip of the warm liquid, wincing as soon as it hits his tongue.

Harvey smiles triumphantly at Mike's grimace, but it's a hollow sort of triumph because it means that his suspicions have just been confirmed. "So," he says nonchalantly, taking a seat across from Mike. "When were you planning on telling me that you had another seizure?"

Mike splutters and chokes on the mouthful of coffee and Harvey thumps him on the back a few times. "I don't know what you're talking about," Mike says tersely, and his eyes are darting around the office again, this time looking for an escape route.

"No? So how did you get that bruise on your cheek then? And I'd be willing to bet my favorite car that you bit your tongue, didn't you?" Harvey says these things with a questioning inflection, but they're not really questions. More so just statements of fact.

"I tripped," Mike says weakly, twisting his fingers together anxiously. "I tripped and bumped my cheek on the counter and bit my tongue on the way down. That's all."

"Oh, I believe that you hit your cheek and bit your tongue. But you didn't trip, did you, Mike?" Harvey says. Mike looks panicked now, so Harvey deliberately softens his tone, as though he's talking to an injured animal. "It's your meds that have been causing all these strange side effects, isn't it? The restless legs, your hair falling out— it's all because of your antiepileptic medicine. But it's not working and now you've had another seizure."

"No," Mike denies it fiercely, but Harvey can see the truth in his tired, tortured blue eyes. "Please, Harvey. Just leave it. I tripped, okay? Don't worry," he whispers.

"But I can't just leave it, Mike," Harvey says, his voice calm and matter-of-fact. He studiously ignores the fact that Mike is blinking rapidly and that his eyes are watery and braces himself to go in for the kill; to admit something to Mike that he would never admit to anyone else besides Donna or his little brother. "Because I am worried."

And with that admission, the floodgates open. Mike jumps to his feet and begins pacing. "Alright, fine. I had a seizure this morning. Are you happy now?!" He shouts angrily, dragging his hands through his hair. Harvey sees a few short strands come away with Mike's hands but wisely chooses not to comment.

Harvey knows that Mike's not really angry at him, but that he needs some outlet for his anger—after all, Mike's own brain is the enemy in this case. That's not an easy thing to process and cope with, and Mike certainly isn't one for talking about his epilepsy. Harvey thought they'd made a lot of progress when Mike had told Jessica that he needed to his insurance updated to cover treatment, but he can see now that they'd barely scratched the surface back then. After all, in the months that have followed since Mike's first seizure, Harvey has never heard him mention it again. He knows that Mike has gone to the neurologist for it and started taking medicine, but Mike never talks about it. So it had just kind of slipped Harvey's mind. Until now…

"Of course I'm not happy, you idiot," Harvey says, wondering if Mike would sit down if he asked him to. He remembers how bone tired Mike was the last time he'd had a seizure and he certainly looks exhausted right now. "Were you actually planning on telling someone that you had a seizure this morning? Or were you just going to hope no one noticed?"

Mike glares at Harvey. "What—was I supposed to come in and tell you 'oh, yes, Harvey, sorry I'm late but despite the fact that I've been taking powerful drugs for months, my brain still can't keep it's shit together and I've had another seizure. Here are the papers you wanted; I'll just be on my way to go pace around the associate bullpen for a few hours since I can't fucking sit still anymore'? Yeah, right, Harvey."

"No," Harvey says, his voice calm and clinical. One of them has to keep it together during this discussion, and he figures Mike is somewhat entitled to a meltdown right now—god knows the kid has probably just been bottling all this up the past few months. "No. You were supposed to call me right after it happened so that I could come take you to the hospital. Because you promised that you'd tell me if this happened again."

"Yeah, right," Mike scoffs. He collapses back on the couch, much to Harvey's secret relief. "You yelled at me in that meeting with Mr. Collins last week just for bouncing my leg. If you can't cope with the side effects of my medicine, why would I expect you to want to deal with an actual seizure?"

"Because I didn't know that was a side effect from the medicine, Mike!" Harvey says defensively, frustration seeping into his tone. "Jesus, kid, I thought you had starting using drugs or something. Frankly, it's a relief to find out that this is all related to your epilepsy and not to some secret meth habit. And you don't give me enough credit—I said I would help you deal with this, but you won't let me. How am I supposed to help if you don't tell me these things?"

"Because it's embarrassing, Harvey!" Mike exclaims, and Harvey knows they've arrived at the heart of the matter. "I'm almost 30 years old, for Christ's sake, and I've suddenly developed the attention span of a 5-year-old on a sugar rush. Not to mention the fact that I can't sleep at night, I can't stop moving my legs, and my hair is falling out. Nobody wants to talk about that kind of stuff."

"Well, I do," Harvey says. Mike looks surprised. "Mike, when I said that we'd get your seizures under control, I meant we. I'm sorry that I haven't taken a more active role in helping you deal with all of this the past few months, but we've all been busy fixing the damage from Hardman's regime. And from now on, I want to know these kinds of things—if your medication is working, if there are any side effects, if you have another seizure…just tell me, kid. Have you at least talked to your neurologist about any of this?"

Mike shrugs miserably. "What is there to talk about? He warned me about these side effects when I started taking the medicine. I knew it could happen. And for the most part, I could deal with the side effects—they sucked, but it was worth it for awhile. I made it almost 4 months without a seizure so I thought 'hey, you know, who cares if I can't sleep or sit still and that chunks of hair fall out every time I wash it?' But then it didn't even work and I had another seizure and I've been wasting my time taking this crap and feeling shitty because of the side effects and now I'm just going to have to start all over again and try yet another new medication—" Mike pauses to draw in a deep breath before deflating and rubbing at his eyes wearily. "I'm sorry. It's just frustrating."

"Understandable," Harvey says simply, promptingly; hoping that Mike will keep talking.

"It's just frustrating because—I don't know, I just feel like I lose a part of myself every time it happens. Like there's a piece of me just gone—I know I got up this morning and showered and ate breakfast. I know that I turned the coffee pot on. But I don't remember doing any of it—I just barely remember waking up on my kitchen floor with my cheek throbbing, my tongue swelling, and a fresh pot of coffee all brewed on the counter. That's it. It's just—there's nothing there," Mike says, and Harvey finds himself oddly nauseous as he envisions all the ways that this morning could have ended disastrously for his associate—what if Mike had had a seizure when he was walking down the stairs and had fallen? After all, there are a lot of stairs in that death trap of an apartment building he calls home. Or what if he had had one while he was riding his bike to work and had fallen into the street and been hit by a car?

And if this could really happen at any time, what if Mike had a seizure when he was standing by a large body of water and he fell in and drowned? What if he was standing on a ladder and had a seizure and fell? What if—

"Harvey? Are you in there?" Mike asks, cautiously waving a hand in front of Harvey's eyes until Harvey blinks, dispelling a rather haunting mental image of Mike lying crumpled and bleeding on the ground. He wonders if Mike would consent to wearing a suit made of bubble wrap— after all, he has Rene at his disposal and Rene can make any kind of suit and somehow make it fashionable.

"What—yes, of course. Now, are you going to call your neurologist or do I have to do it for you?" Harvey asks. He doesn't really mean it about calling the neurologist on Mike's behalf, he mostly just said it to prompt Mike into action, because surely Mike will want to call for himself…

"Um," Mike says articulately after a moment of silence. "Um, would you—would you mind calling for me?"

"Oh," Harvey says, surprised. Normally this would be the perfect time to make some joke about Mike being a child, but the younger man sounds so insecure about having asked that Harvey finds he doesn't have the heart to make fun of him. "Sure. What's the number?"

So that's how he winds up talking to Mike's doctor, a man named Dr. Levinson. He explains the situation as best as he can—Mike's medicine has been causing unfavorable side effects, it's stopped working, he needs a consultation and probably a new medication, etc.

"Why don't you bring Mike in for an appointment next Tuesday? Is that alright, Mr. Specter?"

"Oh, I'm not—" Harvey starts to say, before realizing that it's probably a good idea if he accompanies Mike to the neurologist this time. It's probably for the best that he knows everything possible about what medicines and treatments Mike is on so that he understands if Mike starts having any strange side effects again. He should have known what was going on from the start, and he didn't intend to make the same mistake again. "Yes, I'll bring him next Tuesday."

"Good, good. I'm glad someone will be coming along this time and driving him. He showed up alone the last time he came in a few months ago—he had ridden his bike through the freezing cold to get to the office and it took him a good half an hour to stop shivering," Dr. Levinson says, and Harvey feels a surge of guilt run through his veins. He looks over at Mike, who is oblivious to Dr. Levinson's side of the conversation. He is staring innocently out the window, and Harvey thinks that he has never met someone who gives him such conflicting desires—half of him wants to grab Mike by the shoulders and shake him and then punch him on the arm for his complete lack of common sense (gently, though—he's probably sore and bruised from his seizure earlier in the morning) and the other half of him wants to bundle Mike's thin frame up in endless amounts of jackets and scarves and hats so that he doesn't shiver for half-hour increments at a time and hurt himself should he have a seizure and fall.

"Okay, we'll see you Tuesday," Harvey says and he bids the doctor farewell.

"Well, that's all taken care of," he tells Mike. "You have an appointment next Tuesday afternoon. Unfortunately I'll have to take you myself," Harvey says, and he adds in a dramatic sigh for effect before he continues on. "—it's Ray's day off and I know it'll take you forever to ride your bike there and back because you'll probably dawdle and stop to feed some pigeons or something, so I'll just have to drive you to save time. After all, I foresee needing you to proofread a lot of briefs that day." Mike rolls his eyes at the prospect of proofreading and Harvey's put-upon attitude, but looks relieved that Harvey is coming to the appointment too.

He stands. "Well, I had better get back to work before you decide we need to have a heart-to-heart about something else."

Harvey arches an eyebrow, offended that anyone would accuse him of frequently initiating heart-to-hearts. "You do that," he says, loading Mike up with a stack of files. "Donna has Tylenol at her desk, you know. Might help with your bruise."

"I'm not 5, Harvey," Mike scoffs, puffing out his chest slightly as though trying to look bigger. "I think I can handle one little bruise on my cheek—" his voice dies down at the end of the phrase and all of a sudden he looks strangely pale.

He sways slightly and drops the stack of files that Harvey had spent a good ten minutes alphabetizing that morning. "Harvey," he says, and his voice sounds oddly strained and quiet, but it is undoubtedly tinged with panic. "Harvey, `m gonna—"

"Shit," Harvey exhales, and he lunges forward as Mike's eyes roll back in his head and his legs, which suddenly look remarkably like spaghetti noodles, give out completely from underneath him. Harvey feels a sharp jolt of relief when he is just in time to catch Mike before the side of his head hits the coffee table. The two of them drop to the floor, Mike's upper body resting partially on Harvey's lap. Harvey cradles Mike's head in his hands so that he doesn't bang it on anything as his body convulses and seizes uncontrollably. He does his best to maneuver Mike so that he's lying on his side and won't suffocate or choke but after that, all he can really do is sit back and wait for it to stop.

He's forgotten how scary seizures are—he had never seen one before he saw Mike have one in the office a few months ago, and that memory is hazy and blurry from adrenaline and confusion, since that was before he had known about Mike's condition. This time around, though, everything is terrifying crisp and clear. In this moment, he is startlingly aware of the way that Mike's body is shaking and spasming in his arms; startlingly aware of how fragile and mortal and breakable his associate really is.

And he hates it—he hates feeling helpless like this; helpless to stop this from happening. He has always prided himself on his ability to gain control over any situation and manipulate the variables to get what he wants—but he can't do anything to fix this, except pull Mike a little closer as the spasms start to die down.

Suddenly Donna is there, her face concerned. "Oh god, Harvey, should I call for an ambulance? Is he okay?"

She comes to kneel next to him and gently begins smoothing the hair from Mike's eyes, her gaze soft and maternal. Mike's full-body convulsing has dissipated into a stream of sudden jerks of random limbs, but his eyes are still closed and he's not present with them.

"No," Harvey says, and he is slightly ashamed that his voice comes out as a croak. "No. He'll just be mad and embarrassed if he wakes up in the hospital. Can you call his neurologist? I was just talking to him about making an appointment for Mike; the number will be listed in my most recent calls. Ask him if we should bring Mike in to the hospital."

Donna steps away to call the neurologist and Harvey returns his attention to his protégé. Mike has completely stopped shaking at this point, and he begins blinking slowly, opening his eyes and coming back to himself. Harvey knows from experience that Mike will be groggy and lethargic and will most likely want to sleep for the next several hours. What he isn't expecting is for Mike to suddenly push his way out of the half-embrace that Harvey has him in and lurch into a kneel.

"—'m gonna puke," Mike gasps out, and Harvey quickly dives for the garbage can before Mike can ruin the luxurious carpeting on his office floor. He awkwardly pats Mike on the back while he retches, feeling great sympathy for his associate right now—the kid has had one hell of a day so far—two seizures, a bruise on the cheek, a bitten tongue, and now vomiting? He has a feeling that he's going to have to give Mike the day off tomorrow to recover. Or the next several days.

When Mike finally stops throwing up, he sits back, his face sweaty and his eyes glazed and dull, open but not really seeing. The circles around his eyes are so dark and deep that he's starting to look like a living skeleton. Donna magically appears with a cup of water then, and Mike rinses out his mouth, his movements clumsy and tired. He curls up into a ball half way under the coffee table, apparently content to fall asleep there.

"Where are we?" Mike rasps hoarsely after a minute or two.

"I'm in my office. You are under my coffee table," Harvey says.

"Oh," Mike responds, making no attempt to move. Suddenly his head pokes back out from under the table. "Oh. Harvey—I'm sorry. In your office, shit, people in the hallway probably saw—"

"It doesn't matter, Mike," Harvey says, waving off his concerns. Mike looks worried, but he seems too engaged in an epic battle to keep his eyes open to muster up the energy to respond or continue to be worried.

"The neurologist said to keep a close eye on him and have him sleep it off tonight. Take him to the hospital if it happens again. And you're to bring him in for his appointment tomorrow instead of on Tuesday now," Donna whispers in his ear, placing a cool, damp cloth on Mike's forehead that she somehow miraculously conjured out of thin air.

"Alright, Mike— up and at `em," Harvey says loudly near Mike's ear, shaking Mike's shoulder gently. The younger man is basically asleep now, and although Harvey works out pretty often, there's no way that he'll be able to lift Mike's dead weight onto the couch. He's going to need Mike to be at least semi-conscious for a little bit.

"Shhhh," Mike mumbles sleepily. He scowls fiercely in Harvey's direction, but the overall effect is somewhat mitigated by the fact that he's got his eyes closed and that he looks much younger than 28 curled up like this.

"Mike, you've got to help me out a little bit here," Harvey says, determinedly shaking Mike's shoulder again. Mike tries to bat Harvey's hand away, but misses completely and smacks it against the coffee table.

"Ow," he groans, opening his eyes and staring reproachfully at the coffee table.

"Alright, time to get up," Harvey says coaxingly.

"Fine," Mike says grumpily, still glaring at the table. "That was mean."

Clearly Mike is still disoriented and beyond reason right now, so Harvey rolls his eyes and plays along. "Yes, that was very mean of the table. Now it's time to move away from it and sleep on the couch, okay?"

Harvey manages to help Mike up and he half-drags, half-carries him the two foot distance to the couch, where he instantly falls back asleep.

"If you need me to come and sit with him while you take a lunch break, let me know, Harvey," Donna says before patting him on the shoulder and returning to her desk to field the calls she had missed during the past half hour.

But Harvey doesn't leave his office for lunch. He sits at his desk and works through the afternoon, glancing up every few minutes to make sure that Mike isn't having another seizure. When dinner time comes around, Donna brings him a panini from a deli down the street before heading home herself. Harvey is loathe to wake Mike and he has a lot to do, so he just sits and keeps on chugging through paperwork, making up for the work that Mike is missing right now. And if he happens to get up and drape the jacket of his spare suit over Mike's shoulders when he sees that Mike is shivering in his sleep; well, it's not like anyone is there to see it happen. The glass walls of his office hold the imprint of many long forgotten secrets, what's one more?

When Mike wakes up, he is distinctly confused and disoriented. The last time he remembers being awake was the late morning, but now it's dark in Harvey's office and he has no clue what time it is or why on earth he's been sleeping on Harvey's precious couch with Harvey's suit jacket tucked around him. Then he feels his swollen, painful tongue and recognizes the distinct bitter aftertaste that accompanies vomiting, and it all hits him like a ton of bricks.

He sits up so fast that he cricks his neck.

"Glad to see you're still alive," Harvey's voice comes from over by his desk, sounding surprisingly sincere for what would generally be a sarcastic comment coming from the older man. Mike cranes his neck to look over at his mentor, feeling several of his stiff joints crack.

"Harvey—oh god, I'm really sorry—" he realizes that he has the distinct memory of yelling at his boss about how much his life sucks and then having a seizure after and decides that he officially wants to curl up in a hole and die. "—a seizure in your office in front of everyone…and I didn't look at the Landon briefs this afternoon like I was supposed to and I missed a meeting for housing court…shit."

"Are you quite finished?" Harvey asks, sounding remarkably calm given the fact that Mike has just been asleep on his couch for the past—he glances at the clock and blanches— eight hours when he should have been working.

"Why aren't you mad? Aren't you going to—I don't know, at least lecture me or something?"

"No," Harvey says, and his voice is almost…friendly, like he's attempting to be reassuring. It sends chills down Mike's spine. This is going to be bad.

"Oh, come on. You're not even going to give me the 'Unproductive Associates Will Be Taken to the Dog Kennel and Abandoned There Permanently' lecture?" Mike asks incredulously. That is one of Harvey's favorite lectures, and it's also his longest—at least 21 minutes long. Sometimes 23 if he really gets going. It's much worse than the daily 'Late Associates Will Be Forced to Eat Cat Food' lecture—although that one is still rife with an unfortunate amount of puppy references, it's only 6 minutes long.

"Nope," Harvey says. "You know why, Mike? Because you couldn't help having a seizure, and it's not your fault that you were tired after. So I'm not angry. Here, you want some of this sandwich?"

Mike eyes him suspiciously. "Is it poisoned? Why are you being so nice to me?"

Harvey rolls his eyes, his newfound patience abandoned in the face of his associate's obliviousness. "No, it's not poisoned. If I wanted to kill you, I'd at least wait until after the Riordan trial next week so that I wouldn't have to proofread the witness testimonies—do you think I would actually waste my valuable time on that kind of paperwork when I could keep you alive to do it for me?"

"Oh," Mike says faintly, feeling strangely touched.

"Look, Mike, like I said, it wasn't your fault. So forget about it, okay, kid? Now come eat something. You'll need your strength, because we've got a fight ahead of us to sort this all out— and we will get your seizures under control this time around, understood?"

"Sir, yes sir," Mike salutes Harvey cheekily before realizing that his stomach is growling fiercely. He then proceeds to not only eat Harvey's entire sandwich, but also the secret bag of chips that Harvey keeps in the office to munch on during late nights, as well as two granola bars from Donna's stash.

Normally after having a seizure he feels like his body is a fragile, alien thing and he is terrified of himself and of having another one. But that night as he beds down on the ridiculously comfy couch at his boss's apartment, he realizes that he feels strangely safe for the first time in a long time as he listens to the sounds of Harvey getting ready for bed in the background. He would probably wonder what that meant if he had the energy to do anything besides sleep for another 8 hours.

In the days and weeks that follow, Harvey makes good on his promise to do his best to help Mike get his life and his brain together, much to Mike's amazement. He brings Mike to his doctor's appointment and actually sits in the examination room during the appointment instead of out in the waiting room. Oddly enough, he seems to listen intently and actively participates in the discussion with Dr. Levinson, describing some of the side effects Mike has been experiencing from his perspective and recounting the story of the second seizure Mike had in the office. And if that isn't surprising enough, Harvey actually sticks up for Mike when Dr. Levinson suggests that Mike should stay on the same medication and, in fact, up the dosage of it.

"Surely you aren't suggesting that Mike should stay on this medicine, Dr. Levinson. Look at him—he can barely sit still, he can't sleep, and he's still having seizures. I don't know what they teach you in medical school, but I don't need an MD to tell you that something here isn't working," Harvey had said, fixing Dr. Levinson with his best please-stop-being-an-idiot look. Mike can't help but smile at this because it's weird to see that look directed at someone else besides him.

"Well, Mr. Specter, in all fairness, the medicine has been doing some good—this is the first time that Mike has ever been able to feel a seizure coming on early enough that he could articulate that he was about to have a one before it happened. I find that to be encouraging, and if we stick with this medicine, Mike may one day be able to predict his seizures before they happen," Dr. Levinson had pointed out.

"Yeah, he was able to call for my attention right before it happened, but it wasn't like we could do anything about it at that point—not to mention that that was the second seizure he'd had that day. Surely that indicates that a change of treatment is needed," Harvey had refused to take 'no' for an answer, and Mike had watched in awe. He couldn't remember the last time that someone had been such a strong advocate for him. His grammy hadn't been well enough to attend his doctor's appointments for several years, and once he was a teenager he had tried to avoid bringing her anyway so that she wouldn't worry about him. But Harvey was here, and he was determined to get Dr. Levinson to do what was best for Mike. It made Mike feel oddly warm inside in a way that he hadn't felt since the last time he had hugged Grammy before she had died.

"Well, I suppose that we could try a new medicine that would eliminate some of these troubling side effects, but frankly I'd like to determine what exactly it is that's causing these seizures in the first place. We need to treat the root cause, not just the symptoms. Mike, have you ever been to Johns Hopkins?" Dr. Levinson had asked then, and Harvey had looked satisfied with the doctor's proactive response.

Dr. Levinson had recommended that Mike go to Johns Hopkins for a week-long stay at their prestigious epilepsy center, where they would run a gamut of tests and try to induce a seizure to see what was going on inside his brain when one occurred.

So that's why he's currently sitting on a plane to Baltimore, waiting for take-off and drumming his fingers nervously on the armrest of his seat.

Harvey has been surprisingly good about giving Mike the week off, and didn't even given Mike any paperwork to take with, so now Mike finds himself with nothing to do but sit with his thoughts and worry.

It's times like this when he really misses Grammy—he longs for her steady, soothing presence in the same way that he had often longed for his parents to miraculously come back home when he was younger. He wishes she were sitting next to him right now, holding his hand and telling him that everything is going to be okay. Instead he's going to have to face this week all alone—which is fine; really it is—he's an adult and he doesn't need someone to come with him to Johns Hopkins. And now that Grammy is gone and Trevor is out of the picture, there's really no one left to shoulder this burden with him. Although Mike thinks of Harvey as more than just a boss, he doesn't know that Harvey necessarily returns the sentiment, and he can hardly expect the busy lawyer to drop everything to come sit at Mike's bedside in the epilepsy clinic for a week. So he sits alone, wishing that he could blink and have the week be over.

He does blink then, but there is no magical time-traveling. Instead, he opens his eyes to find Harvey standing in front of him in the aisle of the plane.

"Budge up, I'm not going to climb over you and I prefer the aisle seat," is Harvey's greeting, and Mike dutifully moves to sit in the empty seat next to the window, gaping at Harvey in complete bewilderment the entire time.

"What—you're here?" is Mike's articulate response to Harvey's sudden presence.

"A cunning and clever observation, Mike," Harvey says, opening his briefcase and pulling out a file. "I have business in Baltimore this week, coincidentally, and it just so happens to be the same days that you'll there. So anyway, I'm going to need you to look over this contract before we land. I'm afraid I'll probably have to break you out of the hospital at some point to come help me."

"Okay," Mike says merrily, much cheered by the prospect of getting to keep busy with some form of work while cooped up in the hospital.

"And I'll probably have to spend a lot of time at the epilepsy center with you so that we can go over the paperwork for this case, so don't think you can't get away with lying in bed and sleeping all week," Harvey says. Mike rolls his eyes, but he is so pleased by the fact that he will have someone there to visit him and sit with him that he forgets to respond sarcastically.

Instead he opens up the file and begins reading. "Wait a second, Harvey. These are the Trenton files. You said you weren't going to take on their case because they were too far away and you didn't want to go to Baltimore…did you just agree to defend them because you knew that I'd be in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins?" Mike asks, a smile beginning to stretch across his face.

"Don't be ridiculous," Harvey sniffs loftily. "Why would I do a thing like that? I obviously took on the case because the Trenton family name needs defending, and I can't stand by in good conscience and let them lose their case. It just so happens that they're based in Baltimore. It has nothing to do with you, so you can get that ridiculous smile off your face and start reading," he says, but it lacks its usual conviction and Harvey doesn't even complain when Mike falls asleep on his shoulder instead of reading the contract. When Mike wakes up, he realizes that it's all going to be okay—sure, it might take some time to get his epilepsy under control, but it'll be alright. Because even though he lost his Grammy, he still has someone who's willing to fly several states away to be with him while he undergoes a daunting set of procedures. And Harvey might not ever explicitly admit it, but Mike knows the truth, and he's eternally grateful for it.

So he doesn't mind when Harvey climbs through the window of his room at the epilepsy center at 3 in the morning to make Mike proofread bylaws. And he doesn't complain when Harvey eats the really good blue jell-o they give him every single day, even though it's Mike's favorite flavor—or at least, he doesn't complain much. But he has to complain at least a little bit to keep up the illusion on Harvey's behalf.

Because if Harvey still thinks he's getting away with the whole I-don't-care-about-anyone-but-myself thing, he's seriously deluded. But Mike's definitely not going to be the one to tell him that.

So that's that, hopefully you all enjoyed my cruel torture of Mike XD I should point out that I am by no means an expert on epilepsy—every case is different and every person has different kinds and lengths of seizures and different reactions afterwards—this is all just based on what I know from my sister's experiences with the many strange side effects that accompany trying different antiepileptic medications (and she would literally kill me if she knew that I was writing stories about it so shhh XD). Anyway, I'm off to catch a flight to Europe :D :D Thanks for reading!