WARNING: There is a Major Character Death in this story. Why didn´t I tag it? Because it isn´t permanent. I know, it sounds weird, but think about Fate, alternate universe and the theorie of the multiverse and you´ll get why the MCD is not important to this story. So, if you aren´t a fan of MCD, please continue on nevertheless, because - as I said - it isn´t permanent.

There are many ways to tell a story.

In one story, a little boy begged his mother for some sweets. You can´t start a story without sweets. You need something light-hearted, something good, so that no one would shut the book after the first page. And who wouldn´t continue a story that starts with sweets?

At first the boy asked with wide eyes and with an easy smile on his lips, but when his mother denied him, his pleading became more desperate, his eyes started to tear up and his lips quivered in a vain attempt at keeping the tremors out of his voice.

Annoyed – because they didn't have enough money; because her boss was a sexist pig; because she was so tired and just wanted to go home – the mother would grab her son´s arm and take him home.

They all stared at the woman that dragged her crying son through the streets.

The mother and the boy never entered the little grocery store. Fate – or just their own free will; who would dare to presume to know how life works? – had guided them away, had tapped on their shoulders and had steered them further down the streets.

The boy soon forgave his mother and his mother soon forgot the whole incident. Boisterous boys had to be raised, clothes to be sewn, money to be earned so that they could continue living in their little flat at the edge of town. Just another unremarkable moment in the long line of unremarkable moments that made up their lives. Out of sight, out of mind.

And Fate continued spinning her golden thread.

The boy grew up. He went to school, joined the football team. He had his first crush, got his heart broken, lost his virginity and his common sense, regained back the latter and always came home with new experiences, some of which he would share with his mother, others that would never make it over the tip of his tongue. He was smart and he was stupid, was cautious and hot-headed. He was right and he was wrong.

He was a child and then a young adult, who received his diploma, eyes as wide as they had been once upon a time in front of a grocery store that no longer existed. His mother cried and he hugged her awkwardly, not wanting to damage his 'persona' in front of his friends.

His life was remarkable in its unremarkableness.

The boy went to college. The money that his mother hadn´t want to spend on sweets was now used to pay for overpriced textbooks, cheap foot and warm sweaters from the thrift store. In the holidays the boy would come back to his mother and they would exchange stories; just the two of them, like it had always been. The boy didn´t know anything else and he didn't want anything else, either.

He would come back to college with his cheeks a little rounder (nobody cooked as good as his mother), his bags full of cookies and his mind full of new ideas.

The boy would meet his future wife in Accounting II, a dreadfully boring business and they would bond over their love for numbers, indifference towards politics and hate for spicy food. He would kiss her two weeks after he had first spoken to her. Just a fleeting kiss on her lips as they departed for their next lecture, both their cheeks burning hot afterwards, but also consumed by an inner glow that came from falling headfirst in love with the right person. Their first sex would be in a corner of the library where nobody ever got lost – very few students where interested in cookbooks – and they felt young, rebellious, wild and free like you only felt when you still thought that the world was yours to play with.

He introduced her to his mother one month later. They talked in their secret language of women and the boy sat there and sweat, because they could be the best friends or hate each other and he wouldn't know. Later his mother would take him aside and congratulate him and the boy knew that she approved.

He would ask his girlfriend to marry him two years after. The ring was cheap, the wine even cheaper, but neither of them cared, because they were in love and love conquers all.

Michael James Ross was born six years later. As his mother slept in the hospital bed (birthing was a stressful affair after all) his father would hold the baby in his arms and whisper to him of all the things he planned to do with him. Playing baseball in the park, teaching him how to ride a bicycle, taking him to every corner of the US to show him the land.

They made it to two before it all ended in shattered glass, broken metal, lifeless eyes and a screaming child on the backseat.

Fate didn't always weave kindly.

Mike Ross grew up with his grandmother who loved him with all of her heart. But love and raising a grieving boy-genius were two different things and maybe the story would have been told differently if Edith Ross would have had the strength to be harsh as well as loving.

Mike made the wrong friends at the right time, did wrong things for the right reasons, was too passionate and too naïve, cared too much and acted too impulsive. He fell in love with the law and with his boss, fought for the former but never for the latter (fear of rejection can make you do the most stupid things, don´t we all agree on that?), saw that even behind a rat´s face a brave lion could be found and that snakes could also hide behind an angel´s smile. And most important, he learned that you needed courage to fight your enemies but that it took true strength to fight your friends.

It was fast, it was wild, it was always on step away from the abyss and it came all crashing down in a crescendo of screaming, fighting, crying and silent fury.

Mike Ross died because even in prison he couldn't let injustice pass by unchallenged. He died because he wouldn't just lay down when he was beaten. He died because his compassion and empathy was met with cruel eyes and cruel smiles. He died because he spoke up for the right persons against the wrong people. Mike ross died for being who he was.

Fate cut his thread and cried one single tear for how short it was.

Harvey Specter cried more than a single tear for the brave and loyal man who once had been a mean to an end, turned into a friend and could have become even more if he hadn´t let all these chances pass by. Emotions had never been his strengths and he had paid dearly for it.

Donna Paulsen cried for a man who came into her life as threat and went as friend. Rachel Zane cried for the only man who had never looked down on her. Louis shed tears for a man who never gave up on him, even when they had been at odds.

Jessica Pearson didn´t cry. Not because she didn´t grieve or because she hated Mike. No, she had long ago learned that tears wouldn´t change anything. As she stood in front of the gravestone, Jessica Pearson thought about wasted potential, about compassion and about the little human things that made you keep going when everything was set against you. Then she took all the grief, the pain and the fury and went to war.

Evans Smith, Travis Tanner, Robert Zane, Daniel Hardman, Charles Forstmann; they all fell before her wrath. Jessica Pearson was a goddess of war and she would not rest until her enemies rued the day that they had decided to come after one of her own.

"Why?" Anita Gibbs would ask her before she was carted off to prison for crimes she thought she had buried so deep that even God wouldn´t find them.

"You made me bury one of my own," Jessica answered, her lips set in a thin line and her eyes smouldering like burning coals. "Now, I´ve buried you."

Jessica Pearson was no God. She was better.

In this story Mike Ross died but he had awoken something in the people around him that they thought had been long lost. Jessica became judge and with every new trial she would remind herself of sacrifice and loyalty until the very end. Harvey Specter took over the firm from her and remembered empathy, compassion and something that felt like home.

Forty-two years after the little boy had begged his mother for sweets there still would be an empty office on the main floor of Pearson Specter Litt with the name 'Mike Ross' on it. Sometimes Harvey would enter it and let his finger roam over the table. He would sit down and just close his eyes and think of better times when he had been younger, carefree and in love. He would think of all the new stories he could have told Mike if he was still here.

He thought about love, loss and cerulean eyes that looked at him like he had hung the moon.

"I´m so sorry," was what Katrina Bennett had said to him when he had entered the room long ago and had seen her standing there, staring at the empty table. It were the only words that she said before she broke down and cried so many tears that Harvey thought she would drown.

"Why?" he just asked.

"Because he was my friend, too," she replied. Even though Katrina never came back to work for PSL she would always come back to the little office on the 53rd floor.

Her first child was named Michael and Harvey thought that maybe he wasn´t the only one that knew love and loss.

Jessica would still visit Harvey, because while she may no longer had an active role in the leading of PSL, in her mind it was still her firm for which she had fought and Mike had died for. And she would always make the detour to the little, empty office, dipping her head in respect.

Loyalty and sacrifice.

In one universe this was the end of the story.

But Fate was endless, infinite, immortal. She had Time and Death at her beckoning. She transcended, encompassed; she started and she ended. She wove threads of gold and threads of silver. And most important, Fate never wove only a single thread.

There are many ways to tell a story.

In another story, a little boy begged his mother for some sweets. And this time his mother said yes. The boys whole face lit up, like only little childrens' would. Maybe it was one Dollar less in his future, but the mother wanted her son to smile.

The mother and the boy entered the little grocery store. Fate – or just their own free will; who would dare to presume to know how life works? – had guided them, had tapped on their shoulders and had steered them towards the shop across the street.

The boy chose two lollipops. The mother paid. They were leaving the shop when the mother turned around and saw two girls standing in front of the counter, the smaller one crying and clutching the older one´s hand as the shop owner – an old, white man, the mother never had quite liked – cursed at them that this was a 'respectable business' and that he wouldn´t sell to 'dirty, nigga girls'.

The mother looked around and saw cowardly people averting their gaze, pretending that nothing happened and cowardly people that nodded along at the old man´s tirade and she felt disgusted at her fellow human beings.

She remembered well how she had been treated after the divorce. Damaged goods with a kid. What respectable woman would file for a divorce, anyway? What a shame to live with! The poor man, having been burdened with such an unruly wife. And the child! A single mother raising her child. What damage would the poor boy suffer?

The mother remembered how it had hurt. Death by thousand cuts until she decided that she would no longer care. People had only power over you as long as you allowed them. She didn't. Should they preach, those hypocrites, with their forked tongues and their bitter, shallow hearts.

The mother marched up to the old, white man, whom she never had quite liked and slapped him in the face. Then she took the girls by their hands and led them out, under the disapproving gaze of cowardly people with cowardly minds.

She was fined one hundred Dollars. It was much money for her, but when she thought back to this moment she would do it again and again and again. She was no coward.

In another story the boy would have stormed into his room, crying that he hadn't received any sweets. In this story they came home with two girls for whom the mother made hot chocolate and to whom the boy animatedly talked to. He even offered his second lollipop to the crying girl who accepted with a small smile.

Later, Edith Ross would take the girls back home to their parents in a fancy neighbourhood she would never be able to afford, to a house that was too clean and orderly and parents that were too silent towards each other.

She hoped that she had shown the two girls that there was compassion to be found in this cold and cruel world.

The next day the older girl was back.

"I didn´t hear the end of James' story yesterday," she said, trying to sound nonchalant as she peered into their little flat. Edith thought of clean houses and silent parents and let the girl in.

"I didn´t introduced myself properly last time," the girl said too formal. "Jessica Pearson. One day I´m gonna be the best lawyer in the US."

Edith looked down on the girl, barely older than her own son, that look of determination on her face, her eyes burning with passion, and she believed her.

James grew up. But in this story he had a friend at his side. Brave, wild and smart Jessica Pearson who went with him on every adventure to be had in their little town. The cowardly people around them frowned and disapproved, but neither of them cared. Monsters were there to be defeated, after all.

James went to school, joined the football team. Jessica joined the debate club. He had his first crush and got his heart broken; Jessica was the one breaking hearts. He lost his virginity and his common sense, regained back the latter (Jessica never lost her common sense, to begin with) and always came home with new experiences, all of which he would share with Jessica (who sometimes wondered what she had done to deserve this). She was smart and he was stupid (sometimes the other way around), she was cautious and he was hot-headed. They were both right and they were both wrong.

It was at their little flat that Jessica stayed when the silence between her parents grew into shouting matches. It was Edith´s hot chocolate in which Jessica´s tears fell as her clean and silent home fell apart. It were James' stories that made her smile sometimes when Jessica didn't know what to do with her sister that suffered even more under their parents fights.

It was James with whom Jessica got drunk in the car that her parents bought for her at their divorce and which she hated with passion.

They were children and then young adults, who received their diplomas, James' eyes as wide as they had been once upon a time in front of a grocery store that no longer existed. His mother cried and he hugged her awkwardly, not wanting to damage his 'persona' in front of his friends.

Jessica´s sister came. Her parents didn´t, because she didn't want them to. Edith Ross hugged Jessica and remembered a girl that had always known what she wanted. Jessica hugged back and remembered a woman that came to her defence when no one else would. She remembered hot chocolate, soothing words and thought, that, maybe, home truly was where your heart was.

Their life was remarkable in its unremarkableness. But neither of them cared.

They both went to college; different ones, but their friendship would weather every distance. In the holidays James and Jessica would come back to Edith and they would exchange stories; just the three of them (sometimes Jessica´s sister came as well, but it was not often), like it had always been. They didn´t know anything else and they didn't want anything else, either.

James still met his future wife in Accounting II, still had sex with her in the back of the library. But this time it was Jessica who was the first one to know.

He introduced her to his mother and Jessica one month later. They talked in their secret language of women and James sat there and sweat, because they could be the best friends or hate each other and he wouldn't know. Later Edith would take him aside and congratulate him, while Jessica stayed back and joked with Nina, and he knew that they approved.

He would ask his girlfriend to marry him two years after. The ring was cheap, the wine even cheaper, but neither of them cared, because they were in love and love conquers all. Jessica was his best man, because fuck the system and there was no one James would have rather had at his side.

Michael James Ross was born six years later. As his mother slept in the hospital bed (birthing was a stressful affair after all) his father would hold the baby in his arms and whisper to him of all the things he planned to do with him. Playing baseball in the park, teaching him how to ride a bicycle, playing pranks on his godmother Jessica, taking him to every corner of the US to show him the land.

They made it to two before it all ended in shattered glass, broken metal, lifeless eyes and a screaming child on the backseat.

Fate didn't weave kindly this time as well.

In this story Mike grew up with his aunt Jessica who loved him with all of her heart. Edith Ross didn't need to be harsh because Jessica was when the situation required it.

Not everything was happy, though, in this story. Mike was an eleven-year-old genius who had lost his parents. Who had watched them bleeding to death in the middle of nowhere while he had cried and screamed and begged for them to stay with him. Jessica was a rising star in Manhattan´s legal world who had just lost her best friend and his wife and now had to take care of a traumatized child.

They fought. Mike screamed and cried, throwing cruelties at Jessica´s head with all the fury a child could muster. Jessica cut back with icy tone and cruelness that only an adult could possess. On some nights Mike laid in his bed and thought if it would be better if he just ran away, as far as possible, so that he wouldn't be a burden to Jessica and his Grammy. Then he remembered his last birthday and how happy Grammy, Jessica and he had been (it was still subdued, his first birthday after his parents' death, but even the faintest light glowed brighter when it was dark) and he decided to stay.

On some nights, when storms raged on outside, Jessica sat on her couch, wine glass in hand, and thought about giving Mike up to someone better. Someone who wasn´t cold and harsh, who had the maternal instincts she lacked. But then she looked at the photos on the cupboard with her and James or her and Mike and determination gripped her again. She would keep her family together, even if it was the last thing she did.

Mike grew up between files strewn all over their flat. He grew up knowing Sarbanes-Oxley before he knew the capital of each US-State. He grew up learning that the world was full of people only looking out for themselves, that it was always better to keep one´s card carefully hidden and that you had to step over corpses in order to get anywhere. He learned that there were three types of people: tools, enemies and allies and that you never trust the latter completely, because there was always someone who had a better offer than you.

But he also grew up knowing the value of loyalty and family. Of knowing the value of having someone at your back that you could trust to not stab you at first opportunity. He grew up with two strong women with even stronger ideals, who had fought society and won. Mike grew up to be compassionate, caring and empathetic because with these women at his back he could afford to be.

When the children should introduce what they wanted to become later in elementary school, Mike went in a mini three-piece-suit and declared in front of firemen, police officers and vets that he would become a lawyer as awesome as 'his aunt Jessica'.

When Mike was bullied in High School Jessica didn't go to the principal, because she had been in his position once as well and she knew that the system was made by the strong for the strong and that it wouldn't help Mike. Instead she taught him how to unearth secrets, how to listen to rumours and find the ones worth pursuing, how to make others compile without uttering a single threat and the value of having people in position of power in your debt.

To her knowledge Mike was never bullied again, and if he was, he took care of it by himself.

Mike loved Quinton when Jessica introduced him. They were both brilliant minds that cared too much and cautioned to little, but Jessica was more than ready to balance those two out. When it all ended, it was Mike who sat her down on her couch, offered her a tissue and told her: "It´s okay to cry. You don´t always have to be strong for me." Jessica cried and used up all the tissues and Mike just sat beside her and was strong for her.

Mike´s coming-out was a compilation of nervous fidgeting, stuttering and a rehearsed speech that he stopped mid-sentence because he forgot the rest. Jessica just took Mike´s trembling hands in her own and looked into those terrified blue eyes.

"I accept it," she said. "I accept you." Mike just clung at her and cried tears of relief while Jessica let her hands run soothingly over his back.

The partners at Gordon Schmidt Van Dyke thought that they could overlook her. The poor, black woman who was saddled with another man´s child. Not ready for the world of law. Not ready for the high stakes they were playing; for the Champaign and the caviar. Maybe good enough to do the grunt work, satisfied with vague promises of a better future in the firm. Jessica smiled, nodded politely and did as she was told while she inwardly plotted and schemed.

Boys get to grow up to be men, you see, and girls just grow up to be bitches.

One by one they fell to her machinations. Jessica Pearson, the puppeteer behind the strings. She made them dance and fall at her whims and she enjoyed every second of it. Jessica was much, but one thing she wasn´t was merciful.

After only one year she had her name up the wall.

"I knew you could do it," Mike said to her, as she, he and Edith stood in front of the wall that now proudly proclaimed Pearson Hardman. Edith may be in the dark, but Mike knew all the corpses she stomped over on her way to the top. What was a law firm but a High School in big? Jessica smiled at him and Mike smiled back.

"Now you finally are the best lawyer in the US," Edith chuckled. "I never doubted it; not once since you told me as small girl."

Jessica plugged herself a young, mouldable mind out of the file room and sent him to Harvard. When Harvey came back – cocky, arrogant, talented and indebted to her with every fibre of his being – she used him to get rid of Daniel Hardman who would have ruined the whole firm for his affair.

When no one else wanted him, despite his good grades and his Harvard education, Jessica took Louis and set him against Harvey. They were so busy fighting each other that they would never get the idea of trying to topple her.

She taught Mike that it always paid off to have people of power in your debt. Well, it also paid off to be the person in power others were indebted to.

Jessica played the strings and she played them well.

And high above them was Fate, weaving and weaving her golden thread, smiling at these mortals' foolishness.

Mike went to Harvard. He left Jessica as novice and came back a master. Still caring too much, still emphasizing with everyone that had a sob-story to tell, but Jessica turned this into his strength.

He may not know it, but Jessica knew exactly the moment Mike and Harvey fell for each other. One visit at her firm, one chance encounter with the smooth lawyer in her office and the following battle of snark and obscure movie references was all that it took.

They thought they could hide it. The love-besotted gazes, the lustful stares, the touches they thought were discreet but were anything but. The one time where Mike came home with Harvey´s tie around his neck or the other time where Harvey came out of the closet with ruffled suit, even more ruffled hair and a smile on his face as if he had just taken over the world.

Benevolent, Jessica let them believe what they wanted. She remembered whirlwind romances, stolen kisses, longing glances, sweet caresses and the feeling of being able to topple over the whole word.

"One last thing, Harvey," she called after the lawyer when he was about to leave her office. Harvey turned around.

"Be careful with Mike," she said. "Break his heart and not only will I break your career but also both of your knee caps." Harvey didn't even ask how she knew about them in the first place. He just nodded and then fled the office.

Jessica leaned back in her seat and smiled.

When Mike and Harvey married, Jessica wasn´t best man. But upholding true Ross tradition Mike had chosen Katrina to stand at his side while Harvey had Donna. It was Jessica who led Mike down the aisle into the waiting arms of a Harvey that seemed like he was about to burst with luck. As she sat beside Edith in the first row, the older woman took her hand and looked at her with teary eyes.

"I´m so glad that James and I went into that grocery store all those years ago," she cried. Jessica remembered hot chocolate, sleepovers and building forts in a small living room. She remembered a shoulder to lean on; she remembered James and the feeling of acceptance and belonging.

Jessica remembered happiness and smiled. "Me, too."

Fate weaves destiny. A golden thread for every one of us. In one story, Mike Ross' thread had already been cut, fallen into the vast emptiness of the universe.

In this story Fate would continue weaving for many more years to come.

AN: The sentence 'Boys get to grow up to be men, you see, and girls just grow up to be bitches.' belongs to dirgewtithoutmusic and was taken from "ugly: in defense of pansy parkinson".