Fifteen Minutes

Disclaimer: I do not own Suits or any characters.

Author's Note: This is really old – I found it on my laptop and contemplated posting it … And here we are.

Warning: Very, very minor swearing, as well as Mike in pain.

"You're late," Harvey growled out as soon as Mike stepped into his office, still breathless from his rushed bike ride to the firm.

"Yeah, sorry. I was -"

"Did I ask?"

"Well, no, but -"

"Mike." He stared at his associate, face impassive; though disbelief shone strong and true in his eyes ... "I don't care," he enunciated, causing a slight tightening of Mike's chest. "Now, thanks to you, I'm behind on the Courtney and Allison case. And I will not lose because of you. So you are going to get back on that pathetic piece of transport that you have the audacity to call a bike and haul yourself up to court, retrieve the files that are waiting for me and get back here. Oh, and Mike? You have fifteen minutes. Or else."

Or else I lose my job, he thought despondently.

Mike nodded, biting his lip to stop himself from retorting that Maybe if you hadn't kept me working 'til the wee hours of the morning, had allowed me to sleep longer than three hours, I might've been here on time, and not accidentally caught a few more minutes of precious rest.

Harvey glared at his so-called protégé. "Why aren't you moving?" he demanded.

The eidetic, false lawyer turned foot and darted out the door, ignoring Donna's half-disapproving, half-concerned face.

"Look, it's Golden Boy! Or are you actually Silver Boy, beginning to rust and stuffing up everything?" Kyle taunted between guffaws of mocking laughter.

Ignoring him, Mike sprinted to the elevator, huffing out an apology as he bumped into some flustered lawyer. In the ride down, calming music played overhead, doing nothing to soothe his frazzled nerves. He checked his watch; a minute had passed. His heart thumped wildly in his chest, panic flowed through his veins. Finally, the metal doors of the lift dinged open. Darting through them, Mike ran through the wide expanse of space, out the glass doors, and down to his bicycle. Hurriedly unchaining it, he hopped onto it and pedaled like mad away from Pearson and Hardman, towards the court where the files were that would ultimately decide if he had a job tomorrow resided. A car hooted at him and he rode all the more faster. Mike took a right, then a left, until the courthouse finally came into view. Jumping off the bicycle, not even bothering to chain it up, he flat-out sprinted through ornately-carved doors, and came to a stop, choking on his breath, before a secretary's desk.

"Hi, sorry," he gasped out.

The dark-haired woman responded kindly with a bright smile, and Mike quickly stole a glance at the clock above her head. Eight minutes left.

Well, shit.

"May I please have the files for Harvey Spectre?" he continued.

"Michael Ross?" she asked.

"Yes," he breathed out. Her fingers whipped across the keyboard as she did who-knew-what. Nodding affirmatively, she grasped two files that were tied together with an elastic band and handed them to the associate. Once more he exited the doors in the same manner as before, files tucked safely away in his satchel. Swinging a leg over his bicycle, he half ran, half-cycled out of there.

Six and a half minutes.

Mike rode faster.

Vehicles streaked past, lights flashed in his peripheral vision. Another car horn blared, another sharp corner.

Nearly there.

And then white.

Glaring, bright white that fizzled into existence beneath his eyelids -

Blackness, as consciousness faded away, as the white died out -

Five minutes and forty seconds ...

And all it had taken was nine minutes and twenty seconds for a car to hit him - the impact would decide whether or not he had a life tomorrow -

Five minutes and thirty seconds ...

... to decide whether a job was worth fifteen minutes or an eternity of death, of dark ...

Fifteen minutes in total to make him realize that he hadn't been living, only waiting for the snap as something gave under the pressure.

And thirty minutes later for one Harvey Spectre to wonder where his associate was - and maybe, just maybe ... feel a spark of worry ...

An hour afterwards to contemplate his words, and regret them unashamedly.

All because of fifteen minutes, due to a lack of time for proper sleep.

For a job.

A job Michael Ross may not have anymore.

…

Was it worth it?