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So that was that.
The words last minutes and the silence lasts forever. There's nothing to be done, no anger or hatred or grief, just numbness through every cell in his body.
The distance between them, nine feet and three inches, swells and contracts with the emptiness of death and there's really nothing more that can be done. Standing across the room might as well be a whole world away, because this isn't real – it can't be. This is his computer frozen, music caught in a moment and held for an eternity that reaches inside and tears at your mind, over and over – until it catches back up and the noise turns back into a melody.
He's just waiting for the emptiness to speed back up and be revealed as nothing more than a pause for breath.
But that doesn't happen, of course. Deep down, he knew that this was the melody coming back. The abnormality was that he'd gotten anything at all.
There may have been words, at some point afterwards, declarations and promises and all manners of agony thrown and echoing from tiles, but the air is still now. The only movement in it is from the systematic pumping of his lungs in a vain attempt to push him up and away. The silence wraps around him and eases him free of his humanity. Gentle, soothing little fingers working their way through his skin and coaxing out the emotions and the compassion and everything else he'd managed to learn.
Because what is the point now?
The monitors have long since fallen silent, the tears and screams have fallen like dust to the floor, and reality is curling it's cold, vicious hand around his shoulder. There's nothing more to say and there's no-one there to say it to.
The world outside is still warm and vibrant, but the vitality of time is halted and turned back at the doors and windows of the building. Nothing passes through the antiseptic and the bleach, fiercer and more tangible than any figment of imagination. Cold, clinical – chemicals at their most basic and most undeniable.
It could've been minutes, or it could've been hours – but the silence will last forever.
People appear at the door, indistinct and forgettable, gentle murmurs and painful words, dripping with sympathy and emotion that has no place here.
He finally gets up, takes one last look at the space nine feet and three inches away. The past hits him, a flare lighting up the remnants of before and he sees him. Pain stabs and rattles and crushes into his chest and he crosses the room, closing the distance.
Eight feet seven inches, five feet ten inches, three feet one inch.
Something shakes through him, daring him to carry on so he leans forwards, hope welled in his heart and head for the last time.
But his lips press to cold skin, hand pressed to a still and silent chest, and the potassium flare of hope fades to black.
He pulls back and turns away.
Harvey leaves the remnants Mike of their life together. There's nothing more to be done and nothing more to be said. The computer jerks, the song keeps playing and he goes back to before.