A/N: Thanks for all the kind reviews! This one is just a two-parter, but I have two other fics already in the works so more will be coming soon. ;-) Now, on to chapter two and enter: my huge girl-crush, Donna!

Chapter Two – We All Seek Out to Satisfy Those Thrills

The next day found Harvey at the office at the tick of eight am. That in itself would be enough to tell Donna something was up. But the angry twist on the corners of his mouth and brisk 'don't mess with me walk' told her anything the early hour didn't.

That and Mike's message in her voice mail.

Harvey had barely had time to sit down behind his desk for the day when Donna burst through the glass doors.

"You fired him?" She asked, more accusation than question.

Harvey almost seemed to deflate a little in his suit, and then looked up at her, unfriendly sarcasm on his face.

"What, did he call you and tell on me?"

Donna uncrossed her arms and Harvey frowned at the look of shock on her face.

"No. You did. Just now," she leaned forward to place a colorful post it note directly in front of him, Mike's address written in Donna's neat writing with a purple pen. "He said you'd know what to do with this."

She took a step back, it was easier to give him the full brunt of her glare with a little bit of distance between them. "How could you do it Harvey? He's in the hospital for crying out loud."

"I'm not gonna explain myself to you Donna," Harvey said, as close to condescending as he dared get with the redhead. Ignoring the post-it, he opened his laptop to check his emails.

Donna jutted her chin out to one side and crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow. Harvey tried valiantly to ignore her, but the heat of her anger was too much to handle this early in the morning.

"Look, I'm sorry-" he started.

"Oh, I know you are," Donna interrupted, "and ten years ago I would have walked out that door after a comment like that," she paused, satisfied with Harvey's slight wince at the veiled reprimand, "but I'm going to let it slide because I know you're worried about the kid. And you don't have to explain anything to me Harvey, I'll be satisfied if you explain yourself to Mike's 85 year old grandmother who's going to be kicked out of that nursing home the minute Mike isn't able to pay for it anymore. Or maybe he'll just go back to selling drugs, is that what you want?"

"No, what I want is an associate who isn't so asinine as to go off and do something I told him not to."

"You never told him he couldn't get a second job."

"I told him not to do anything stupid. Like get shot during a convenience store robbery doing a second job he shouldn't even have."

Donna sighed, shaking her head, her anger suddenly replaced with a softness Harvey wasn't used to seeing.

"C'mon Harvey, he's just a kid. And he's doing the best he can," she said, almost pleading with him, and Harvey had to look away to keep the guilt off his face.

"He should have come to me," Harvey insisted, standing from his desk and pacing away a bit to stare out the window at the sprawling New York skyline.

"When? When exactly was he supposed to do that Harvey?" Donna asked, one hand on her hips, one darkly painted finger pointed right at him, "During the Gabriel Merger that turned into a Hostile takeover? Or when you were working twelve hour days on the Rafferty Trial and eating take-out three times a day over briefcases and file folders? Or how about when the cases were finally closed and you told him not to contact you because you had dinner with a client?" Donna stopped. By now her point had been made, and it had never been necessary to beat a dead horse with Harvey. She hoped that would hold true this time as well.

"Look, Harvey, Mike is the best associate this firm has got."

Harvey turned around at that. Donna was usually very careful not to show favoritism to anyone but him. In fact, he'd rarely heard her even acknowledge the presence of another lawyer on the face of the planet unless it was on Harvey's behalf. Still, he probably should have known she had a soft spot for the kid after she volunteered to help him for the mock trail.

"Don't look at me like that, everyone knows it," she said, reading his mind as usual, "you know it, I know it. Even Louis and Jessica know it." She stared at him a moment and the softness melted from her eyes, and the cool, aloof Donna he knew and loved was back. She put her hands on her hips, "now I've worked too long and too hard training this one for you two to mess it all up. So get yourself back to that hospital and fix this."

She did an impressive about face in her four inch stilettos and made her way out of the office, obviously having said her piece.

Once at the door, she paused and turned around and in her best 'secretary of the year' voice said, "And don't worry. I'll hold your calls."

Harvey went back to his desk and sulked there for a solid fifteen minutes after Donna left him. Donna was right. Of course, Donna was right. Donna was always right. It was one of the things Harvey loved most and found most insufferable about her.

And if Harvey was forced to admit it, and Donna had pretty much made sure he was, he knew there was no way the kid would know he could come to Harvey with something like that. Something personal, potentially humiliating.

Hell, if Harvey were Mike, he wouldn't have come to him either.

Finally, Harvey stood and collected his coat. He paused as he passed Donna's desk on his way to the elevators and kept his voice low when he spoke to her.

"I'll make it right."

Donna flipped her hair off her shoulder and smiled up at him, a fond, genuine smile on her face he enjoyed seeing more than almost anything else (because Donna's opinion of him had always mattered, and he liked when he was able to make her proud).

"I know you will."

With a nod Harvey turned and continued toward the elevators, determined to make good on that promise no matter how…uncomfortable, doing so proved to be.

When Harvey got to the hospital he went straight up to the fourth floor, room 409 where he'd last seen his associate. He paused right outside the door and stretched his neck, trying to see Mike through the door without actually going through the door. In the wrong or no, he wasn't exactly looking forward to what he was about to do.

"Mr. Specter?"

He turned to face a nurse he was relatively certain he'd seen before, a young woman in teal colored scrubs with puppies on them. His mouth quirked and he wondered briefly if he would ever be able to see a baby dog again and not think of Mike.

"I'm glad to see you're back," her brow furrowed a bit and she glanced inside the room. "I was wondering if you might know how we could get in contact with any next of kin? His parents maybe?"

Harvey sighed. "He's an only child, his parents passed away several years ago." Mike had contacted his grandmother as soon as he was awake after surgery to assure her he was alright, but there was no way the elderly woman could come and visit her injured grandson in the hospital.

The nurse seemed genuinely upset to hear the news.

"That's too bad. He's a sweet kid. Seems like the type that needs someone looking out for him, you know?" She said quietly and walked away, not realizing the knife of guilt she'd just twisted painfully in the lawyer's gut.

Unable to put it off any longer, Harvey slowly entered the room.

Mike was just as he left him, bandaged and bruised and looking too pale in white on white sheets, but alive. Breathing.

He settled into a chair beside the bed and stared at his clasped hands, assuming the kid was asleep.

"Didn't think I'd see you here again."

Harvey looked up to see a pair of clear blue eyes staring at him, his mouth pulled tight in an attempt to withstand waves of pain and Harvey made a mental note to see about getting him more drugs.

"You visit all your ex-employees in the hospital?"

Harvey had to hand it to the kid, he had guts, even when laid up and in the hospital he was ready to go ten rounds with his boss.

"Yeah about that," Harvey sighed and resisted the urge to run his hands through his hair, "look kid I didn't mean it."

"Sure seemed like you meant it."

Harvey shook his head. He wasn't going to let him off easy, was he?

"It's not that I don't want you around or anything. It's not even that I don't want you to come to me with a problem," Harvey continued quickly, holding Mike's eyes and keeping his tone calm but sincere, the way he would with a client that was about to pull out of the firm. "But…look Mike you're smarter than half the partners at Pearson Hardman and all the associates." Mike smiled a bit at the compliment and it made the knot of tension in the lawyers stomach loosen slightly. "I know I'm tough on you but that's because I know you can figure most of this stuff out on your own. I don't want you to get too used to coming to me with every little thing. I won't always be there. "

"Are you trying to tell me you're dying?" Mike deadpanned.

"What? No," he caught the look of mischief on Mike's face and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'm trying to have a serious conversation and you make jokes."

"I'm a funny guy." Mike mumbled, his eyelids clearly getting heavy as the battle with slumber became more of an all out war.

Harvey leaned forward, getting Mike's attention once more. "Seriously Mike. Most of the time I'm going to blow you off, but if it's something big like this, like you're so strapped you can't even afford to eat," he raised his eyebrows and waited until he could see clear understanding in those cloudy eyes, "it's your responsibility to make me listen. Got it?"

Mike's face turned serious for the first time and he swallowed hard but made no attempt to speak, only nodded once. Harvey nodded back, glad the kid wasn't getting too mushy on him, and sat back getting ready to stand up and head back to the office.

As he did so Mike's eyes drifted shut and his breathing evened out in sleep. He looked so young and small and alone there in the bed that Harvey couldn't help hearing the kind nurse's voice replaying in his head.

"Alright kid, get to sleep," he licked his lips, watching Mike succumb to the drug induced slumber. "I'll be here when you wake up." The end was nearly too quiet to hear, but the slight twitch on the younger man's lips told him Mike had indeed heard him.

Harvey leaned forward again, whispering menacingly, "alright. Fine. I care. But if you breathe a word of that to a soul living or dead I will kill you myself."

Mike smiled fully, eyes still closed.

"Wouldn't dream of it. You do have a reputation to maintain after all."

Harvey leaned back again in the chair, making a show of getting comfortable to cover his growing smile. He knew there was a reason he liked this kid.

END

Hope you enjoyed it!