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It’s not that Mike actually needs to look at the documentation from the old Coastal Motors case to review it; it’s all up in his head, same as all the other reams of paperwork and records of records of records from this clusterfuck of a suit they’re trying to mount against Malik. The thing is that sometimes he likes to give his brain a break, and sometimes it’s easier to spot connections or contradictions when he’s got them on paper—well, on the computer, but either way, in front of his face rather than in his mind’s eye.Pinching the bridge of his nose, Mike hits the “Home” button on his keyboard to start his third reread. This time he’ll get it, this time for sure.The instant he starts in on the second paragraph, his cell phone rings.Oh thank god.“Hello?”“Is this Mike Ross?”Frowning, Mike pulls the phone from his ear to glance down at the display screen. The number doesn’t have a name attached to it, and he doesn’t recognize the woman’s voice; if Malik is trying to get at them with a private investigator or something, he’s got another thing coming. Well, whatever; if she starts asking him about the case, he’ll just hang up on her.“Yes,” he replies. “Who’s this?”“This is Paula Agard,” the woman says, as though Mike should recognize the name. When he doesn’t respond, she fumbles a bit: “Uh—that is, this is Paula, Harvey’s girlfriend?”This is…This is who?This is who?Mike doesn’t know what systemic reflex forces the next words out of his mouth, but he says “Of course,” as though he already knew, and he says “How can I help you,” as though this is normal, and she laughs a breathy laugh, as though she’s relieved, and he wants to throw his phone across the room, as though it might help.“Well, you see, Harvey gave me a key to his apartment on our two month anniversary,” she confides, “and I was wondering if perhaps you had any idea of a gift I could give him in return. You know, something really special, something he would really like, to show him how much I appreciate the gesture.”She—what?He what?They what?Two months, Harvey’s had a girlfriend, and Mike had no idea. Two months, Harvey’s had a girlfriend, and he’s given her a key to his apartment, and Mike has never met her. Two months, Harvey’s had a girlfriend, and she’s got a key to his apartment, and she wants to get him something special but even after two months—two months—she needs help thinking of something he would really like.He loves boxing, Mike thinks, he goes to the ring to train when he needs to clear his head. He loves baseball, Mike thinks, he wanted to be a professional when he was in high school but he blew out his shoulder his senior year and he couldn’t play in the state championships. He loves music, Mike thinks, his dad was a professional saxophonist and listening to jazz can either fire him up or calm him down but you have to know what sort of mood he’s in and you have to know which song to play.You want to get him something really special, Mike thinks, but how can you not know all of this?“He loves classic movies,” he says. “Mississippi Burning is his favorite.”How can you not know?“Classic films,” she muses with a cute little smile in her voice that he has no trouble envisioning even though he doesn’t know what she looks like. Even though he’s never met her, even though he has no idea who she is. “That’s lovely, Mike, thank you.”“Sure thing,” he says, and was that all? Was that enough? Are we already done, was that as much effort as you’re going to put in? “Good luck,” he says, and yes, Harvey will probably like it, whatever she ends up buying, or doing, or whatever, and Mike’s fingerprints won’t be all over it because who doesn’t know that Harvey loves classic films, and who doesn’t know that Mississippi Burning is his favorite?“You too!” she says, and he doesn’t know what that’s supposed to mean. Maybe it’s like that thing where a waiter says “Enjoy your meal” and the customer says “You too” because their mind is entirely elsewhere and they should probably be embarrassed but they’re not paying enough attention to realize what’s just happened.He hangs up the phone and wonders afterward if he should have said “Goodbye.”Whatever.Mike reaches for his laptop, his vision going out of focus as he pushes his finger around the touchpad. Documentation from the old Coastal Motors case appears on the screen, little more than lines upon lines of black smudges and white spaces; Mike presses the down arrow key on his keyboard and watches the PDF scroll insufferably slowly through hundreds of unloaded pages.He has no right to judge Harvey. None. Harvey deserves to be happy and if this woman, this Paula Agard, if she makes him happy, well, that’s fine. That should be good enough for Mike.What would be good, what would really be good enough, is someone who knows that Harvey loves jazz. Someone who knows that Harvey loves baseball. Someone who knows that Harvey loves boxing, and loves classic movies, and is a good and caring and amazing person who deserves to be with someone who wants to give him a gift that really means something, a gift that’s personal, a gift that’s sincere, a gift that’s rooted in some shared experience that binds them together. A gift that she can come up with her own goddamn self.As long as Harvey loves her, that’s what’s important.All at once, Rachel swans into the room in her ruffled white blouse and tight black skirt, and Mike releases the down arrow and blinks a couple of times.“Ready for your deposition?” he asks conversationally as she begins to collect the papers strewn about the coffee table.“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she jokes as he looks up from his screen.“It’s a good plan, Rachel,” he assures her, because it is, and this is a thing that couples do, they support each other. “It should work.”She smiles, not quite agreeing but grateful for the platitude. He was glad to give it.“Do you want to head up there with me?” she asks. “I can drop you off on the way.”“No,” he says at once. “No, you go ahead. I got something I want to take care of before I head in.”There’s nothing left for you to do, Mike. You’ve played your part, you’ve done your share. Are you pretending this is more than it is? Pathetic. Stop it.Stop it.“Malik case?” Rachel asks, and Mike lowers his gaze back to the black smudges and the white spaces.“Actually, Paula Agard,” he replies, needing her to know who that is without his needing to explain even though he kind of hopes she doesn’t so they can be baffled, they can be outraged together, but she doesn’t seem put off by the name and he doesn’t know quite what to make of that. He wonders who else knows about Paula, Harvey’s girlfriend, who might’ve told Rachel when no one thought to tell him. “Yeah,” he goes on, “she called about a half hour ago. She wants to get Harvey something special, wanted to know if I had any ideas.”Rachel’s expression turns inquisitive, and he tries to predict the next words out of her mouth. “What did you tell her?” maybe, or “What’s the occasion?” Or how about: “She couldn’t think of anything herself?”“Why did she call you?”Oh, gosh, I don’t know. It couldn’t possibly be because I care about him, could it, it couldn’t possibly be because he’s responsible for every good thing in my life and I’ve only ever wanted to do right by him and we’ve kind of spent some time getting to know each other over the past seven years, could it? What do you think?“I don’t know,” Mike says wryly. “I guess maybe she thinks that I’m Harvey’s best friend.”What do you think?“Or maybe because the person that knows Harvey the best is the only person she’ll never call,” Rachel counters.Fucking— That, that’s what you think? After all this time, after everything that’s happened. It’s a slap in the face, is what it is, right across the mouth, splitting his lip and smearing blood on his cheek.Mike draws back a bit, but Rachel is still gathering paperwork and probably didn’t notice.“O-kay…” he trails off, but he can’t completely let it slide. No, he deserves an explanation. He does. “Got something on your mind?”“It’s just,” Rachel blurts out, “Donna was here the other night, and she told me about this guy from years ago and she chose Harvey over him, and I asked her if she regretted it, and—”This isn’t about Mike at all. This isn’t about Mike, and it isn’t about Harvey; not really, not in any way that makes them more than role players in a larger story, merely featured guest stars on today’s installment of The Lives of Those Other People. Of course. Great, thank you, I didn’t want to talk about why this might be bothering me.“And what?” Mike pushes gamely, because she obviously does want to talk about it and he’s a good fucking person, god dammit.“I guess it just made me wonder if what she really regrets is never telling Harvey how she feels.”This isn’t the sort of conversation they should be having.(You don’t want to walk down this road with me, I promise you that.)Mike wonders why Rachel didn’t bring it up to Donna when she had the chance, and he wonders how many times she’s regretting never telling that ephemeral him how she feels, Logan Sanders and however many others before him, before Mike; he wonders how much she’s speaking from experience, how many of her own regrets she’s channeling through their friends, these surrogates. He wonders how much she’s not telling him, how much she plans to never tell him because things will be easier this way, take it from me, let’s just drop it.What a terrible thing to think. He should be ashamed.“Anyway, I’ve got to get going.”Of course you do.---Mike presses the down arrow key on his keyboard and watches page after page of the PDFs of the old Coastal Motors case scroll by insufferably slowly, rows and rows of meaningless black smudges and white lines.Harvey’s office is all the way on the other side of the floor, right next to Donna’s, and Mike sits alone at his desk until he turns around to look out the window and finds the entirety of the city of New York sprawled out before him, waiting, waiting.Waiting.---Really, they’ve all been waiting on Donna and Harvey to give it another test drive. They say they haven’t, every single one of them, but they have. Maybe not Jessica, who always had better and more important things to worry about, but the rest of them, obsessed with office gossip the way that people are when they don’t have anything else of any real value in their lives. When they don’t have the time.Really, Mike’s been waiting for them to figure out that they were right the first time, that it was a bad idea then and it’s a worse idea now so they can just move on already, get it out of their systems or whatever and then, and then—Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. (This isn’t about you.)Mike is a good fucking person.“Mike,” Donna says bewilderedly, striding into her office to find him lingering behind her desk. “What are you doing here? I thought you and Harvey were going to see Malik.”“We are,” Mike says, “just not for another hour. Just wanted to talk to you about something.”“What is it?”What do you think it is? What is it always, every goddamn time?“Donna,” Mike braces himself, “Rachel told me that when I moved out because of Logan Sanders, you told her to give me some space because things work out the way that they’re supposed to.”Supposed to. Yeah, they did, we followed the script line for line and we’re happy now. We are.“But she didn’t do that,” Donna reminds him, and he sighs.“Well, that’s my point.”Now Donna’s the one bracing herself, straightening her spine and leaning back warily, tilting her head away.“Mike, where are you going with this?”Mike looks her square in the eye and does his best to believe the words coming out of his mouth with every fiber of his being (or at least most of them).“Tell Harvey how you feel.”Do as I say, not as I do.“What?”He wishes she wouldn’t insult him; she’s supposed to be better than that. She has to be.God dammit.“I know that it’s not my place to say this,” Mike begins, because it isn’t (but it sort of is), “but, Donna, I wouldn’t be with Rachel if it wasn’t for you, and if I let you lose something that might make you as happy as we are and I didn’t say something, I would never forgive myself.” (I can’t do it.) “So if you think there is even the smallest chance that you might ever want to be together and you don’t tell him that soon, you might lose the chance to tell him at all.”Please. For me.I need him to be happy like he deserves.Donna smiles kindly, the smile of the imminent letdown, and Mike sets his expression in stone, freezes it in place, doesn’t let it show (let what, let anything).“Mike I appreciate where your heart is,” she says, “but two people have to want to be together to be happy, and Harvey and I don’t want to be together.”But you don’t understand, this is how it’s supposed to be.(I knew it.)But I need this to be true.“Are you sure?”She smiles again, and the chapter is over, the book is closed, the door is locked. Go away and never come back.“I’m sure.”Mike smiles back, thin and forced, and he hopes she finds him sincere.(I was only trying to help.)---It’s been a long day.To be fair, every day since Andrew Malik stormed into their lives has been a long one, but today somehow managed to cram at least an entire week’s worth of long days into a couple of carefully curated hours and all Mike really wants to do is go home and sleep for a month or so.It’s not even that they lost (they didn’t), or that Rachel and her father lost (they didn’t), or that Alex has to go back to Bratton Gould (he doesn’t), or that Mike expected to have much time to breathe once he got into the Bar and agreed to come back to PSL (he didn’t), but after prison, and the trial, and being engaged for like three years, it’s just that—Well. Just a minute would be nice. It’s not too much to ask, he doesn’t think.Then again, he asked for all of this. Every last piece of it. He knew what he was getting into and he did it anyway, and he hasn’t got any right to complain now that it isn’t turning out exactly the way he’d like.That, and it’s only about five after four. If Mike can’t make it to the end of the day without complaint, what right does he really have to be here at all?It’s been a rough month, is all.Maybe that’s why, when Harvey swaggers into his office, Mike isn’t sure if it’s some kind of relief or just another miserable omen.“Harvey,” he says as he closes the file in his hands. “Hey, what’s going on? Don’t tell me that Malik tried to weasel out of that agreement.”He wouldn’t, Mike is pretty sure. That’s not what this is about, but it’s the obvious question, it’s enough for a second to regroup.“No,” Harvey says, “it’s all good. I just wanted to stop by and say thank you for bringing me this case in the first place.”Butch and Sundance, baby. Batman and Robin.Mike smiles, taking languid steps to position himself behind his desk and looking up with a glint in his eye. “Does that mean we’re even for the prison thing?”Even, he says. What does that even mean? They both fought so hard for one another, and they both suffered so much; they both made mistakes, to be sure, but neither of them really owes the other anything that wasn’t repaid in kind.“We’re even,” Harvey says. He gets it, whatever it is. “Thanks, Mike.”Of course.Harvey deserves to be happy.Mike purses his lips as Harvey turns to go. “Harvey,” he ventures, “did you talk to Donna since last night?”“No, other than to text her we won,” Harvey replies as he turns back, and he looks genuinely confused. Maybe he just doesn’t know what’s within his reach. “Why?”If he could just see what was right in front of his face, if he would just take that extra step to go after what he really wants…Mike shakes his head.“Nothing.”“Don’t worry, Mike,” Harvey reassures him. “I know she’s had a rough time. I’ll tell her we stuck it to Malik and we couldn’t have done it without her.”Mike wants to tell him how badly he’s misunderstood the point he was too gun-shy to make. No; these sorts of things can’t be forced. It’ll happen, just as it’s supposed to. Don’t worry.Harvey will get all the happiness he deserves.---It’s been a long day, and it’s only getting longer.Rachel’s surely finished her paperwork from the deposition by now; she’s probably at home, lounging in front of the TV with a glass of wine in her hand, or curled up in bed with a good book, waiting for Mike to finish…whatever it is he’s doing. Reviewing old records, filing new ones. Typing summaries, wrapping up this damn suit. Proofing his work for the sixth time, spending another half hour with his mouse hovering over the “Submit” button instead of clicking it.Whatever.The prospect of resting his head on his soft pillow, pulling the thin sheets over his shoulders and falling asleep in the cool air conditioning is undeniably appealing. Mike isn’t exactly sure what he’s waiting for, or what he’s avoiding by sitting here in his dark office with his redundant revisions, his repetitive readings, his ominously glowing computer screen.A stuttering knock at the door.Harvey.After a moment, as though whatever he’s doing is somehow important, Mike looks up and immediately wishes he hadn’t waited. Harvey’s face is flushed, his gaze unfocused and his lips parted, and Mike is on his feet in an instant, raising his hands as he draws closer and looks for some signal, anything to clue him in to what’s happened and what he needs to do to make it better.“Harvey,” he says haltingly, “what’s wrong?”Harvey shakes his head, blinking slowly and raising his gaze to meet Mike’s.“She kissed me.”Donna, he fills in immediately.But then… No, no, this isn’t the way things are supposed to be. Not at all.“Harvey?”“She kissed me,” he repeats. “I was just trying to tell her about Jessica, and she…” He shakes his head. “Out of nowhere.”Jessica? No, that’ll have to wait until later. Frowning, Mike grapples for a response that won’t make Harvey furious.“Are you okay?” he asks, which accomplishes nothing but to waste some time. Nevertheless, Harvey laughs a little, and Mike considers it an act of kindness.“I thought we were past this,” Harvey says. “I thought we’d been down this road, I thought we were on solid ground.”It’s hard to say whether it’s the haze in his eye or the hollowness of his voice that makes Harvey seem so lost, but whatever it is stirs an instinct in Mike that makes him grab his shoulder, makes him furrow his brow and step closer still.“What do you need?” he asks, knowing deep in his soul that he’ll do whatever Harvey asks, give him whatever he wants to make that emptiness go away.Harvey starts to raise his hands and lowers them before he’s finished with the motion.“You got a minute?”Nodding at once, Mike fumbles behind himself for his messenger bag before it occurs to him that even if he could reach behind the desk from here, which he can’t, his bag is in the closet, but it doesn’t really matter anyway, being that he doesn’t have any work he needs to bring home with him and there’s nothing he keeps in there that he can’t do without for a night.“Yeah,” Mike says, “yeah, of course, uh; uh, where do you want to go?”Harvey shakes his head, still a little dazed but gradually becoming less so. “My place?” he suggests, and Mike walks immediately toward the door, pausing only when he notices that Harvey hasn’t kept pace.“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, of course.”Harvey follows him out and calls for a car.In the backseat, they sit far apart and don’t say a word. The ride doesn’t last long, and as they enter Harvey’s apartment building and ride up in his private elevator to the penthouse, Mike figures that the silence should be getting awkward, but he doesn’t think that’s occurred to Harvey, and Mike is too worried to be the one to break it.In the living room, Harvey pours a couple of glasses of scotch as though it’s expected of him, and he doesn’t sit down, so Mike doesn’t, either.“She kissed me,” Harvey says to the liquor, and then to Mike: “She walked right up to me and put her arms around me and she kissed me, and then she apologized.”That is absolutely not how things were supposed to turn out.“She apologized?” Mike fishes, and Harvey nods.“She said, ‘I’m sorry, I had to know,’ and she walked right out the door.”Mike looks at his own liquor, then at the floor, then back at Harvey.“She left?”Harvey nods again and takes a drink.(And you came to me.)This is no time to get sidetracked.Mike spreads his hands so abruptly that his glass would have spilled if it had been filled more than a couple of fingers. “You didn’t go after her?” he accuses, wishing there was a way to ask that wasn’t so damn confrontational, and Harvey looks away, out the window.“We gave it a shot,” he says, “years ago, but it was never going to last, and we both knew it, and I don’t know what she was thinking.”Yeah. Mike knew that, somewhere in the back of his mind. He did, really. The thing is that he chose to see it as a green light to push them to try again when it should have been a warning sign, a brightly colored neon warning sign with piercing alarm bells that he was too beat down worn out to read properly even though it couldn’t have been more obvious.“I’m sorry, Harvey,” he says, hoping Harvey will take it as commiseration instead of an admission of guilt, or let it slide if he does.Then Harvey nods, and everything is fine. Forgiven, or let slide.“I don’t want to lose her like this,” he murmurs, holding his scotch glass with both hands. Mike sighs.“You won’t.”(Tell me I didn’t ruin you.)Harvey sighs, a great heaving breath. “I have to talk to her.”Mike makes a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat.“Not tonight, you don’t.”Harvey drains the rest of his scotch. “Thanks, Mike,” he says as he puts the empty glass down on the coffee table.Mike raises his full glass in an impromptu toast.“Anytime.”Anytime.---By the time he gets home, Rachel is already asleep.It’s just as well.---At three minutes to six, Mike wakes up for no particular reason, but then at six o’clock exactly, his phone begins to vibrate, and he must have known it was coming.“Harvey? What’s wrong?” he mumbles, turning away from Rachel, who’s still sleeping, and raising himself up on his elbow as he closes his eyes tight and then squints against the early morning sunlight.“Why didn’t I tell Paula?”Instantly, Mike knows that this is a bigger conversation than befits him staring groggily out the window and hoping not to wake his fiancée as he whispers down the line and tries to avoid using “s” sounds. Pushing the covers out of the way, he sets his feet on the ground and shuffles out the door, toward the living room.“Why didn’t you what?” he asks, trying to force his brain to finish waking up along with the rest of his body.“Why didn’t I tell Paula?” Harvey repeats. “Why wasn’t she the first person I called?”Donna kissed Harvey, Mike remembers, and then Harvey came to Mike, who was one of the last people still at the office, and they went back to his penthouse, where Mike tried to reassure him, and he did a pretty mediocre job of it, but it seemed to do well enough for the time being. Paula is Harvey’s current girlfriend, Mike remembers, who’s apparently been seeing him for two months, although Harvey has never brought it up and Mike has never met her.Harvey’s mother cheated on his father, Mike remembers, and this is probably starting to feel real familiar.“Harvey, you’re not like your mother,” Mike says sternly. “I— Look, are you up? Can I come over, this feels like an in-person conversation.”“Yeah,” Harvey says. “Of course.”“Okay,” Mike says, which is better than “Goodbye,” in this situation.He hangs up and skulks back into the bedroom for a pair of jeans and maybe a tee shirt, and Rachel looks up at him blearily, tucking some hair out of her face.“Mike?” she yawns. “Is everything okay?”“Harvey called,” he says, which is true. “Work emergency,” he explains, which is not, but she nods and snuggles back into her pillow and he doesn’t really mind.The subway ride takes about half an hour, only because he has the good fortune to catch it just as it’s pulling into the station. Mike doesn’t recognize the doorman in Harvey’s lobby, but Harvey must have warned him because he waves Mike up without a fight; the front door to the penthouse is already open a crack, which Mike interprets as an invitation.“Harvey?” he calls, pushing the door open further and peering inside.“Hey,” Harvey says, emerging from the living room, where he might have been waiting by the private elevator, just in case. “Thanks for coming.”“Yeah,” Mike says as he closes the door behind him. “What did you want to talk about?”Shaking his head, Harvey walks back to the living room, his shoulders hunching when he sticks his hands in his pockets.“I should’ve told her,” he says. “Shouldn’t I? When Donna kissed me, she should’ve been my first call, I shouldn’t be trying to keep this from her.”Mike chews his tongue for a second.“Harvey,” he says, “I don’t think this counts as cheating on your girlfriend. Donna kissed you and she walked out, that’s—that’s on her.”“But shouldn’t I have gone to her anyway?” Harvey asks, spinning on his heel and looking uncomfortably desperate. “Shouldn’t I have asked her what she thought, shouldn’t I have asked her for advice?”“I—”“But I didn’t even think about it,” he carries on. “I went right to you.”Mike frowns. “Sorry?”Sighing wearily, Harvey claws his hand back through his hair. “It’s not your fault,” he mutters. Then a bit scornfully: “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about her.”It’s something of a tangent, but Mike doesn’t mind. It’s a nice gesture.“She called me for some gift advice,” Mike says. “She said you guys have been together for two months.”“Longer than that,” Harvey says carelessly. Mike cocks his head, and Harvey smirks to himself. “She was my therapist a couple of years ago.”She…She what?Mike doesn’t know quite how to respond to that. Surely somebody’s pointed out how ridiculous this is, how irresponsible and reckless, how toxic and unhealthy, and Harvey doesn’t need to hear it again. Besides, as things stand, their relationship might not be on such sturdy ground, and “you shouldn’t have done that in the first place” won’t do anyone any good.“Maybe you don’t trust her as much as you think you do,” Mike says. For Harvey’s own good, not out of any sort of spite.Harvey seems to take it well enough.“Maybe not.”Before he can think better of it, Mike quirks his lips at the corners and looks up at the ceiling, which somehow makes things less tense without making them seem frivolous.“I’m glad you trusted me.”“Of course I did.”Of course he did. They’re even, after all.Harvey paces forward, leaning in as he tries to look Mike in the eye. “What?” he asks. “Mike, you know I’m always gonna be on your team.”“No,” Mike dismisses before this gets any further out of hand. “Thank you, Harvey, but you know what, sometimes I think I don’t deserve a friend like you.”“I’m not the one who came over your house at six AM after one phone call,” Harvey retorts, and that’s a good point. Mike is glad he made it.The silence that settles isn’t quite what Harvey expected, it seems. He clears his throat and puts one hand in his pocket, the other hanging limp at his side.“Why did you come over?”Oh, Harvey. You don’t want to walk down this road with me.Mike sighs, wondering how little of the truth he can get away with telling.“You sounded like you needed me.”Harvey smiles.“I think maybe I’m the one who doesn’t deserve a friend like you.”This old argument. Mike shakes his head; they’ve done this enough for one lifetime.“You should know by now that it’s not that easy to get rid of me,” Mike reminds him. “I have excellent resiliency.”“Good.”Okay. This is a new twist.Harvey’s face has a determined cast to it, most of the muscles tensed and sturdy, and Mike no longer feels that he has the grounds to object, and isn’t even sure what he’s got to object to.“I don’t want to get rid of you.”Mike nods slowly, though he isn’t sure exactly why, or what he might be agreeing to.“I don’t want to go,” he offers.Then Harvey does something Mike is pretty sure he’s never seen him do before: Utterly lacking in grace, he takes a lunging step forward, his shoulders moving in such a way that it’s obvious he was about to raise his arms before he thought better of it, stopping himself entirely but his body still coiled with intent, ready to finish whatever it was he started at the slightest provocation. Mike makes to reach toward him, to bridge the gap, as it were, but Harvey doesn’t move.“Harvey,” he says, mostly because it seems like he could use some grounding, and Harvey relaxes his arms and pointedly fixes his posture.“Tell me to stop,” he says, and Mike could pretend not to know what he’s talking about, except that he never could lie to Harvey for very long.He shouldn’t. They shouldn’t. They can’t.Mike shakes his head once.“No.”His movement much easier now, Harvey raises his hand to cradle Mike’s face and Mike leans in like a magnet, or a comet being pulled into the orbit of a nearby planet, and it’s not even that the kiss itself is overwhelming so much as that it’s the culmination of so much, the sharp turning point pulling their story off in a different direction than originally planned. Mike feels himself falling from a higher peak than he’s ever fallen before and it’s more than a little deranged, but Harvey is there to catch him, or to fall with him, maybe, and either way this, this is something more than worth all the waiting.Mike only pulls away when he has to breathe, which, in his opinion, is the best kind of kiss. All other things being equal.Harvey watches him carefully and doesn’t lower his hand.“We could walk away from this,” he says. “Right now, we could go back to the way things were.”They should. It would be better for just about everyone.“Bullshit,” Mike says, which would be funny in a different context.“Mike,” Harvey says, not quite desperate but almost, and Mike slides his hand up to the side of Harvey’s neck, fitting his thumb right under the corner of his jaw.“You don’t wanna be responsible for this,” he says, “fine, here you go: I love you. Okay? I do. I picked up the phone when you called me at six in the morning, I got on the subway and came to your apartment, you asked me to stop you and I said no.” Mike leans forward as if to kiss him again but stops himself at the last second, drawing back instead.“I’m sorry.”Smiling softly, Harvey shakes his head.“You know what,” he says, “I’d do it again.”Mike trails his fingers through Harvey’s hair, tracing the shell of his ear.“I would too.”Every time.---There’s not much point to staggering their arrivals to the office, and now that the dust has settled from the case against Malik, nothing terribly pressing is on the docket; considering the absurd amount of emotional upheaval they’ve collectively suffered in the past twenty-four hours, neither Harvey nor Mike has a mind to object to the two of them camping out in Harvey’s office together. For emotional support or something.Mike sends emails to a couple of prospective clients, and Harvey filters a few outdated files out of his cabinets.“Jessica wants me to take her name off the wall,” Harvey mentions as he fires up his laptop. Mike hums as he finishes another email.“You mean she was in town, and she didn’t even stop by to say hi?”Harvey chuckles quietly, and Mike looks up from his screen.“So you’re gonna do it?”Harvey shrugs. “When Jessica Pearson says ‘jump,’ you don’t exactly say ‘no.’”“No,” Mike agrees, “you say, ‘what’s it gonna cost me to buy you out?’”Honestly, Harvey could kiss him. He won’t, but he could.He doesn’t have too long to consider the prospect before a hasty knock at his office door draws his attention.“Donna.”Mike looks up and Donna smiles weakly.“Hey Harvey.” Clearing her throat, she glances at Mike just long enough to acknowledge his presence. “Mike, could you give us a minute?”Mike turns back to Harvey, who takes his time to survey the scene before deciding on his response.“He knows,” he informs her.Donna grunts, lowering her gaze to the floor. “Of course he does.”“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Harvey asks as Donna shakes her head.“Harvey, I came here because I wanted to apologize, okay?” she says, the flush across her cheeks darkening when she meets his gaze. “I can’t—excuse what I did, but if I could just tell you why it happened, I…”Harvey folds his hands on top of his desk, and Donna sighs.“I would really appreciate it.”Mike quietly closes his laptop and watches Donna out of the corner of his eye.“I can go,” he says, uncertain of exactly who he’s addressing, and Donna laughs as though it’ll cut the tension.“He’ll tell you all about it,” she says, and Mike turns more pointedly back to Harvey, who lowers his head.“It’s your call, Mike,” he says, which is as much a confirmation of Donna’s hypothesis as anything, but Mike does have some sense of decorum, so he purses his lips, gathers his belongings, and heads back to his own office. Come to think of it, there’s some merger agreement that he could finish off in his sleep that’s been sitting on his desk for a day or two.Fifteen minutes later, his office phone begins to ring, but the merger has so dulled his senses that it takes two tones for him to register the sound.“Hey,” he says, reading Harvey’s name on the call screen.Harvey doesn’t respond right away, and Mike switches the phone from his left hand to his right while he waits.He hears a sound which might be Harvey hissing through his teeth, but might just as easily be his chair squeaking after a sharp turn.“Are you free for dinner tonight?”Mike bites his lip. It’s one thing to trade fanciful kisses in the privacy of Harvey’s home during the early hours of the morning, but it’s something else entirely to brazenly plan an intimate evening in the midst of a bustling office full of friends and friends who might as well be family.“Yeah,” he says eventually.Now that they’ve started, it’s pointless to pretend they’re going to stop.Harvey clears his throat. “Are you going to talk to Rachel?”He has to, doesn’t he.The idea doesn’t put quite the cloud of dread over him that it probably should.“Yeah.” Mike rests his chin in his palm. “Yeah, I am.”“Let me know if you need anything.”Mike smirks. Harvey has to know how much his help would defeat the purpose of the conversation, but it’s good of him to offer.“Thanks.”Harvey doesn’t say “You’re welcome,” but his patient silence is just as good. Probably better, at the moment.Mike sighs.“I keep wondering if I’m reading too much into the fact that the wedding gets pushed back every time we try to get serious about it,” he confesses.“Huh,” Harvey replies noncommittally, and Mike clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth.“I’ll talk to her.”“Good luck.”To all of us.Transferring the phone from his right hand to his left, Mike taps his nails against the glass surface of his desk.“I’ll come by your office around eight.”He imagines he can hear Harvey smiling, which is a small comfort.“I’ll be waiting.”Reality is even better.