The apartment was all wrong. He wasn't really sure what he was expecting, the fresh new two bedroom with the island and the blue backsplash and the undercabinet lighting he'd seen the last time he'd come to her home or the pristine white open floor plan he'd seen the night the Albanians drugged him, but he'd been expecting one of them. What he hadn't expected was to see her in the same cramped one bedroom she'd had before he left the job, the one with the tiny little kitchen off to the left, the one with hardly any windows at all, dark and uninviting this time of night.

Why is she still here? He wondered, and then why did Liv move? It had never really occurred to him to ask, before. While they were partners she'd moved a few times; rent was always going up, and she seemed to reach a tipping point wherever she was, decided she could get something better for less if she started over. At least she told him it was money that made her want to move; deep down he'd always kind of felt like she was the kinda girl who didn't want to put down roots. So why had this Olivia stayed in one place for so long? Had something happened, to make his Liv want to move, and had that something not happened to Olivia?

He wanted to ask her, but as soon as she turned the lights on she made a beeline for the kitchen, left him to close and lock the door behind her while she pulled a bottle of red down from on top of the fridge, grabbed a corkscrew from a drawer, her movements practiced, fluid, unsettling. It was careless, he thought, her turning his back on him, her leaving him to lock the door or not, rather than taking care of that job herself. Did she just trust him that much, did she just believe so strongly that what he'd said was true, or did she just not care if he killed her? Maybe it was a test, maybe she just wanted to see what he'd do. She was still armed, she could still protect herself.

Except she'd had three drinks already and was in the midst of pouring a fourth, and that wasn't like his Liv, either. Mixing beer and wine when she had to go to work the next day, when she was alone with a stranger; that wasn't like his Liv at all.

"You think that's a good idea?" he grumbled pointedly as he made his way through the apartment. There was a sort of bar on one side of the kitchen, and stools in front of it, so he plopped himself down there, and she stayed right where she was, leaning up against the sink and sipping her wine, watching him with baleful eyes.

"I'm not drunk," she said.

Do you wanna be? He wondered. Still, though, she had a point, three beers wasn't enough to knock her on her ass. Maybe it was just enough to take the edge off.

"Didn't say you were. Just wondering what that's about, that's all."

"What are you, my mother?"

"Your mother's why I'm asking," he said before he could stop himself, and across the bar from him she went real, real quiet. Still as a statue, hardly breathing, she was staring at him unblinking, something scared in her eyes, something angry.

"The fuck would you know about my mother?"

"Maybe not much," he allowed. "But I can tell you about Liv's mom. Serena Benson, Doctor Serena Benson, English professor at Hudson, loved by her peers, and boozed to the gills every day of the week. Successful on the outside and miserable on the inside and she made Liv miserable, too. 'Til she got too drunk to stand and fell down the subway stairs in front of her favorite watering hole. How am I doing?"

"Fuck you," Olviia said coolly, but she wouldn't meet his eye, and that told him he was probably right. Serena Benson had been a drunk in this universe, too.

"I'm not trying to start a fight," he said carefully, because he wasn't, he really wasn't, wasn't trying to make her mad, wasn't trying to get himself kicked out of her apartment. He had no idea what he'd do if she tossed him out on his ass now, and he didn't want to have to find out. "I just don't like seeing you like this, that's all."

"You don't even know me," Olivia told him. She was halfway through her glass already, and eyeing the bottle like she was thinking about the next one.

"No," he said. "I guess I don't."

They both went quiet, after that. There wasn't a lot left to say; he was tired, and his heart was heavy with grief. Lost in a strange place, with no idea how he'd got there or how he was gonna get back, only clinging to the hope that when he fell asleep he'd wake once more in a world that made sense. But if he did, if he did close his eyes in this universe and open them in the one he'd left behind, Liv would still be dead. Dead, before her time, before she saw her boy graduate from high school, before Elliot ever got the chance to kiss her, before he ever got the chance to tell her he'd meant it when he told her he loved her. Dead, and Jesus, that was wrong, so very wrong; Elliot wasn't meant to live in a world without her in it. Maybe that was why he'd ended up here; this Elliot was gone, but they were always meant to be together, and maybe this God's way of righting that wrong, putting the two broken halves of them together.

I'm losing my mind, he thought darkly. None of this should've been possible, none of it should've been real. Maybe I'm just dreaming.

"Can I ask you something?" Olivia spoke up after a few minutes of them both just staring wordlessly at the floor. She was pouring herself a second glass of wine. She'd never offered him any, but he'd have said no if she asked, and maybe she knew that already.

"Sure," he said. He'd tell her whatever she wanted to hear.

"You said she's your best friend. Liv."

"She is."

Was. Christ, would that ever get easier, thinking about Liv in the past tense? Somehow he didn't think so. She'd always be is, to him, always be present, because she was a part of him, and as long as he was still breathing she'd be with him.

"Just your friend?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He knew what it meant. He'd been fielding that question for years, and he only dodged it now because he wasn't ready to face the finality of the matter. She had been his friend, and now she was dead, and now that was all she'd ever be. The moment had passed them by, and he'd never have the chance to find out what else she could've been to him, if only life had been a little kinder.

"Here, in this universe, I got married," Olivia said. "And in your universe, where she had you, she never did. She had a kid, and I…I never did. All these differences, it's all because of you, right? You join SVU, you meet her, her life goes one way, you join homicide, we never meet, my life goes another. You're the reason she didn't get married. And that necklace you bought her…that's awful fucking friendly. Giving her jewelry because she'd been going through a hard time, not for her birthday or anything."

Olivia might have been four drinks deep and lonelier than he had ever seen her and alarmingly casual about her personal safety but she was still observant and clever and smarter than him. She'd seen it all, pieced it all together, taken the disparate parts of a handful of confusing conversations and seized upon a truth he'd been too afraid to tell.

"I can't say I'm the reason she didn't get married."

Yeah, you can, he thought. Yeah, you can, because as long as you were in the picture she never held on to anybody else long, and you broke her heart when you left and it's been ten fucking years and she was still too scared to let you in. How the fuck was she gonna love anyone else? You did that to her. You made her lonely and you were too much of a coward to do anything about it while you had the chance.

"I wasn't around when she met Ed. I don't know that story."

And given the way that story ended - if it was the same for Liv as it was for Olivia, if Liv's Ed had killed himself, too - he was beginning to think he didn't want to know it.

"But the necklace, all that shit about helping her find her way…you wanted her to find her way to you, didn't you? Your wife's dead, she doesn't have anybody, you're still a part of each other's lives after you were gone, what was it? How many years?"

"Ten years." And every one of them weighed heavy on his shoulders now, every one of them a mistake. If I'd just come back sooner…

String theory, infinite parallel universes; there must have been a universe out there, he thought, where he came back sooner. Where they'd had enough time. Where she let him love her, and he made sure she never regretted it.

"Ten years, and she's still your best friend. Did you stay in touch while you were gone?"

"No."

She raised an eyebrow at that, urging him to explain, and so he did, though the words tasted like poison in his mouth.

"I had to leave the job. I thought a clean break would be best for her. I thought…I thought she'd be better off without me. I just left, and didn't talk to her again until the night Kathy died."

"Jesus," she said, and took another long drink of her wine. "Gotta tell you, if it was me, no way we'd still be friends after that. I think I'd have hated you."

"I wouldn't have blamed her if she did."

"But she didn't, did she." It wasn't a question. "You said she took over the investigation into your wife's death, you said you two stayed in contact. You must have, if you were working that Ohio job together, if you knew enough about what she was going through to buy her that necklace. She didn't hate you at all, did she?"

"Maybe a little," he answered, rubbing the back of his neck. Shit, but this was weird, talking to Olivia about all the things he'd never gotten a chance to talk to Liv about. "In the beginning. But she…I don't wanna say she forgave me -" I want to Elliot…I'm not ready for this - "but I think maybe she was getting there."

"Did she love you?"

That was the question, wasn't it? Elliot knew he loved her, had known it for years, known it since the day Gitano sliced her throat - before that, if he was being honest with himself - had known it that night in the rain when he saw her face again, had known it sitting in the car beside her in front of Noah's school, had known it when she held his hand in the car on the way to Jersey, had known it that night in her kitchen when every fiber of his being had been screaming with the need to kiss her. He loved her, and he knew it, but did she love him? He wanted to believe she did. He thought about that night in her kitchen, thought about the way she swayed towards him and the brush of her cheek against his own, and he wanted, desperately, to believe that she loved him. Now he'd never know.

"You love her," Olivia said softly. It wasn't an accusation; it was a realization. Though he had been unable to answer her original question his silence had spoken for him, his hesitation giving voice to all the words his mouth could not form.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I do. I love her."

There was a kind of relief in saying it out loud, a freedom in no longer hiding from himself, from the desires of his heart, in refusing to feel shame for a love that had defined the course of his life. It was a relief that tasted like defeat, though, because it had come too late. If only he'd been braver, if only he'd been better…what good did it do him, really, being honest now, with an Olivia who did not know him, when Liv was dead?

"And now she's gone," Olivia said quietly. "I'm sorry."

"Me, too."

Her glass was empty now but she did not move to refill it, just looked at him, head cocked to the side and dark eyes wide as dinner plates, the way she looked at a victim, with compassion, with pity.

"It's late," she said. "You should try to get some sleep. I'll get you a blanket."

He didn't fight her, just went to stand by the couch while she rummaged around in a closet. When he'd last been in this apartment, over a decade before, in another life, there had been picture frames on the side tables, but there were none, now. No photos of friends, or even of her mother, just a canvas print on the wall, some soulless flowery thing that looked like she'd picked it up at a big box store. There was nothing in that apartment that showed the personality of the woman who lived there, and he wondered about that, too. Maybe this was just the place where she slept; maybe it wasn't really a home at all.

"Here," she said when she returned, pushing a heavy white blanket into his hands.

"Thanks."

She lingered for a moment, awkwardly, and then murmured a quiet good night, and then she left him, and he watched her go, and heard the click of the lock when she closed the bedroom door behind her. Not completely careless, then, he thought.

Slowly he stretched himself out on the couch, covered himself with the blanket, and closed his eyes.

Please, God, he prayed. Let me wake up where I belong.

It was a long, long time before he fell asleep.