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Rafael woke suddenly and he really wished he hadn’t. One moment everything was a black comforting blanket of non-awareness, the next he was blinded by bright lights, confounded by the cacophonous noises of scuffling feet, busy bodies, machines beeping out of sync, and what seemed like a dozen voices all talking at once. And pain. Pain so bad it made his brain numb with it.
“Take care of that dislocated hip. Let’s turn him onto his other side so I can see his back. 1 … 2 … turn.”
His body was manhandled in a way that no doubt was intended to be gentle but as he rolled onto his left side someone screamed and he had a horrible feeling it was him.
“He’s awake.”
He screwed his eyes up against the unbearable agony that wracked his body. Multi-colored spots danced in front of his eyelids and he tried to pick one to focus on but the bastard spot kept sliding out of his view. He didn’t know what to do but scream and moan. He squeezed his eyes shut again and they were wet with tears. Someone took his wrist gently but firmly and even that seemed to send sharp stabbing shocks traveling along his nerves.
“Mr Barba, do you know where you are?” A new voice. Efficient.
“Ketamine,” said a different voice loudly.
“BPs dropping.” Yet another voice.
“Hospital.” He stumbled over the word. There was something metallic tasting in his mouth. Blood. He didn’t ask the normal question in this situation, ‘what happened?’. He knew perfectly well what had happened.
He’d stopped at the bottom of the courthouse steps to check the messages on his phone while he waited for Benson so they could walk back to the DA’s office together. Henry Hungerford had been waiting for him in a beaten-down Ford that should have stood out like a sore thumb on a New York street if only Rafael had been paying attention. Hungerford had gunned his engine and mounted the sidewalk, sending more alert pedestrians scattering. But Hungerford found his target, hitting Rafael and sent him flying into the stone wall.
The sense of flying and the initial sharp agony of the collision were all he remembered until now and he wished he was back in that black nothingness again.
“Don’t try to talk. We’re going to send you straight to surgery. We’ve just given you some pain relief and a sedative. You’ll feel much better soon.”
Soon couldn’t be soon enough but he could already feel the sedative kicking in; his head was woozy, his eyelids heavy.
Someone put a mask over his mouth and nose and then he felt himself moving, every jolt of the gurney on its way to the operating theater went right through him. Still on his side he caught glimpses of the bright, white walls of the corridor between the green scrubs of the nurses following the gurney at a trot. Then the wall of the corridor became the brighter, cleaner walls of an equipment-filled operating theater and he prayed to a God he no longer believed in to please stop this never-ending torturous pain. Seconds later his prayer was answered.
~~~~~
He came back to consciousness for the second time in a quiet, dimly lit room. For a moment he did nothing but lay there and try to wake up his foggy brain and force it into some kind of activity. The unbearable pain from earlier was duller.
A disembodied voice startled him from somewhere to his right. “You couldn’t just pick up the phone like a normal person?”
Rafael rolled his head on the pillow to face the shadow in the chair but even after all this time he recognized the voice and he already knew who was there.
“Harvey …” His voice came out dry and croaky.
Harvey Specter uncrossed his legs and rose gracefully out of the chair. He poured water from a jug into a plastic cup and cupping a hand behind Rafael’s head to lift him up, he held the cup to his lips for him to sip at. As he drank gratefully, Rafael gazed with blurry confusion at the once familiar face.
“That water needs some scotch in it,” he said when almost half the cup was gone.
Chuckling, Harvey pulled a side table closer to Rafael’s hand and placed the cup on it. “Sorry. There are some miracles I could arrange but that wasn’t one of them.”
Harvey was dressed casually in jeans and a tight henley that showed he still used his gym membership. In the low lighting, and from the distance of the chair, Harvey’s face had looked exactly the same as Rafael remembered. Up close, he could see the changes time had wrought. They were good changes. The shape of Harvey’s jaw was harder, all the youthful softness gone. The laughter lines by his eyes were permanent now. One thing hadn’t changed — the dimples by the corners of his mouth. They appeared now as Harvey willingly yielded to Rafael’s inspection.
Twenty years since they’d been in the same room together, not through intentional avoidance but simply because their choices in the practice of law meant they lived their lives in different bubbles. It had been the main contributing factor to why they’d eventually called it quits after four years in a relationship that had seen them through graduating Harvard and starting their law careers in the same New York DA’s office.
Harvey looked quietly back at Rafael as if he could see the cogs turning, but the cogs turned and Rafael had no answers. They hadn’t seen each other for two decades and in that time they’d barely spoken.
As he opened his mouth to speak, Harvey interrupted, waving a hand toward the partly open door into the brightly lit corridor. “Well … I negotiated my way in here instead of having to sit in that depressing waiting room with all your cop buddies by promising I’d let a nurse know when you woke up so I’ll go do that.”
Rafael reached out and clasped Harvey’s arm in a grip that was feebler than he would have liked and asked the question that had finally forced itself to the front of his anaesthetic-befuddled thoughts.
“Why are you here?”
Harvey didn’t tell him straight away. He made some indecipherable remark and in what Rafael was certain was a maneuver to gain thinking time, left the room to come back with a nurse and sat back into the comfy chair watching patiently while the nurse took some readings, checked various machines, and made notes. Rafael on the other hand tolerated this impatiently but only after she’d left did Harvey lean forward, elbows on knees, hands dangling and loosely clasped. When he started speaking both his face and his voice held amusement.
“I’m here because you are, and always have been, inept at personal life admin.” Rafael looked blank. Harvey raised an eyebrow high into his forehead. “I’m still listed as your emergency contact, you dope.”
Oh? Oh!
“Shit,” Rafael said. He felt the tell-tale heat of embarrassment creep up his face. Harvey wasn’t here because he wanted to be. That shouldn’t hurt but it did. “I’m sorry.”
But Harvey waved the remark away with a nonchalant gesture that seemed to move half his body. The well-known mannerism had always been there but had only gotten more pronounced with age.
“Don’t be sorry. I’m here because I wanted to be, too. I could have told them to take a running jump.” He smiled softly and the familiarity of that look brought back a rush of memories. Hard nights studying across the desk from each other; easy weekend mornings fighting over the crossword section in the paper; finger-food meals while they loudly debated law. Making love in their slow and gentle way.
Harvey continued in a quiet but convincing voice. “I told you when I left that if you ever needed anything I’d be here. I meant it then and I mean it now.” Then he grinned. “Better me than your mother, eh? To be honest, I was just amazed that it’s taken this long for someone to try and kill you.”
Rafael scowled but it was half-hearted. He relaxed deeper into the pillows, too tired to argue, and in any case, he found himself grateful that Harvey was here. He knew he didn’t have to say it; he knew Harvey would know.
Harvey seemed to pick up on his exhaustion. He cleared his throat and stood. “They tell me you’re going to live.”
“Hmm. You couldn’t have started with that gem?” Rafael said tiredly, He blinked his eyes to keep himself awake.
“So I’m going to leave you to your beauty sleep.”
Rafael instinctively opened his mouth to protest but then snapped it shut again. Harvey was here through accident not design and he couldn’t ask him to stay. Harvey must have caught something in his expression.
“I’ll come back,” he said. He hovered where he stood then hesitantly stepped forward, checking all the time for silent permission as he leant down and kissed Rafael on the cheek. Rafael closed his eyes as he felt the warm press of Harvey’s lips. He could have turned Harvey away at any time during his slow approach but he hadn’t wanted to.
~~~~~
The next day Rafael was out of bed trying to find a comfortable way of sitting on his recently relocated hip, more awake, less emotional, and somewhat expecting not to see Harvey again. He should have known better because Harvey was nothing if not loyal.
Just before lunch, true to his promise, Harvey came back. He swung into Rafael’s room, his cheerful grin spreading wider when he saw Rafael was up from bed. Harvey was dressed for work in a shiny dark gray suit, burgundy tie with tiny gold fleur-de-lys, and matching pocket square folded into neat mountain peaks.
“In your honor,” he said, tugging at the pocket square.
Harvey held one arm behind his back but Rafael wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of asking what he was holding. He did however stare at the tie. “I have one just like that.”
Harvey puffed his chest out and looked smug.
“Yeah, I know. Saw you wear it on the TV news. Had Donna find it for me.”
“Now I know you didn’t shop for it yourself, you’ve spoiled the effect.” Harvey didn’t seem bothered by the jab. “How is Donna?” Rafael asked, remembering her fiery efficiency from their DA office days.
“She says hello. Said she might drop by.”
“Say hello back for me.” Rafael shifted in his seat and winced. “And I’d love to see her.” He looked down at his pajamas, sourced by a wise-cracking young nursing assistant from the hospital gift shop and only one step up from the ubiquitous hospital gown. “But maybe when I look more appealing.”
“Are you kidding? The ‘I’ve just been hit by a car’ style looks good on you.”
“Thank you,” Rafael said wryly.
They lapsed into a moment of comfortable silence, Rafael reflected how easy this was. Shouldn’t it have been awkward as hell? Not that he was complaining; far from it.
“Oh wait,” Harvey said dramatically as if suddenly remembering something. He pulled the hand out from behind his back and held out a cardboard box. Rafael’s eyes opened wide when he recognized the logo on the lid. “Something else from Donna. I assume you’re allowed to eat today?”
Rafael made grabby motions and reached out his hands. “Just let them try and stop me.”
With a mischievous smile, Harvey held the box just out of reach while he took a Magnolia Bakery cupcake for himself before handing over the box. Rafael chose lemon and poppy seed.
“They caught the guy who did this to you,” Harvey said while they shared the cupcakes.
Rafael nodded and swallowed. “Benson told me when she came by.”
“She’s the lady detective?”
“The lady Lieutenant actually, but, yeah.” He shouldn’t have another cake but he was injured so what the hell. He took a butterscotch cream cupcake from the box and took a bite.
“She’s pretty protective of you.” Harvey gave him a side glance which presumably was supposed to be subtle but was anything but.
Rafael couldn’t help himself. He let out a small laugh and dribbled crumbs onto the floor. “She’s a friend. I’m not sleeping with her.”
“Fair enough,” said Harvey. He stared at his shoes and sucked icing from his fingers. “I’ve been seeing Dana. On and off.”
Rafael nearly choked. Of all the people. “Dana Scott? I always thought … never mind.” He’d always thought Harvey and Donna would end up together but who was he, who hadn’t seen either of them in far too long, to comment. “Well you always were a glutton for punishment.”
“Hey! I loved you didn’t I?”
“I think you just made my point.”
Harvey smiled. “I guess I did at that. What about you? You got anyone?” He looked around as if expecting some lover of Rafael’s to leap out from their hiding place.
“No. Well … not really. Maybe. Working up to it, I guess.” It sounded pitiable now he said it aloud. He’d been working up to it for nearly two years now.
“Oh, really?” drawled Harvey, sitting back and folding his arms and looking for all the world like the mouse that got the cheese. “This maybe person … She? He? A lawyer? Someone you work with?”
Rafael held up a hand in a halting gesture. “Your honor, counsel is badgering the witness.”
“Your honor the witness is being obstructive. Permission to treat the witness as hostile.”
“Fine,” Rafael conceded, feeling the smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. He’d missed this; the banter, the playfulness. Not just with Harvey but with anyone. He looked up at the ceiling as if it held all the answers. “It’s a he. He is a lawyer but he doesn’t practice. Yes, he is someone I work with.”
“So what’s his name? So I can check him out.”
“What are you? My mother?”
“Oh, yes! Good idea. I should get Lucia to check him out!”
To Rafael’s immense relief an alarm on Harvey’s phone interrupted them.
“Damn. Sorry, I’ve got to go.” Harvey swiped the alarm to off. “Work. But I’ll come back tomorrow.” He stood and brushed a few escaped cupcake crumbs off his pants.
“They’re letting me go home tomorrow morning.” Rafael said it as a matter-of-fact as he could but he could hear the despondency in his tone as he wondered if this was the end of this unexpected but pleasant nostalgia trip. He and Harvey had moved on, happily and mutually, but he was gratified to find they were still friends. The last couple of days had reminded him how good it felt to have that intimacy. It was a long time since he’d opened himself up to the possibility of that with someone else. How odd, that until now, he’d chosen to remember the bad relationships and ignore the good ones.
Harvey looked disappointed too. “Oh. Um … so …” He seemed unsure how to finish his sentence.
“Why don’t you come by in a few days and visit? I’m going to be housebound for a few weeks.” Rafael screwed up his courage. “You could bring Dana.”
Harvey looked at him, amused. “How about I bring Donna.”
“Even better,” he said dryly. “And I’ll get you removed as my emergency contact as soon as I get out of here.”
“Don’t.” The word came out fast as if of its own volition. Harvey himself even looked shocked for a moment before tucking his hands in his pockets and clarifying. “I like being your go-to person.” He shrugged as if mocking himself. Then he leaned forward and with more confidence than the day before kissed Rafael on the cheek before walking to the door and pausing in the doorway, “See you in a few days.”
Half way out the door he bumped into Sonny Carisi on his way in. Sonny and Harvey turned sideways and skirted around each other as if a touch was contagious. They were completely different people and it looked as if they instinctively felt that. And yet they had one thing in common; Rafael cared for them both.
Harvey let Carisi pass with a flourished hand gesture and when Carisi had his back to him, he waved his hands exaggeratedly, pointed and mouthed, “is that him?”
Rafael snorted a laugh he couldn’t hold in. “Yeah,” he said loud enough for Harvey to hear.
Carisi frowned and turned his head to look back but Harvey had gone.
“Who the hell is that guy?”
Rafael smiled, as much to himself as at Carisi. “A friend. A very old, very good friend.”
Carisi shrugged it off. He turned back to Rafael with a smile and sat in the chair Harvey had just vacated.
“Sorry I haven’t been around more,” he said. “I just came to keep you company but I can go if you’re tired.”
Rafael regarded him fondly. “No, stay. Keep me company, Sonny.”