When he woke Elliot did not immediately open his eyes. He wasn't proud of it, but a part of him was scared of what he might find when he did. Would he be in the same place he'd fallen asleep, stretched out on Olivia's couch in some strange alternate universe where she did not know him? Would he be back home, in the life that was familiar to him, a universe where Liv was dead and gone? Christ, what if he was somewhere else altogether; what if the whole nightmare just started up again, in a different place, with a different Olivia? What the fuck was he gonna do then?

You'll never know if you don't open your eyes, he told himself. He drew in a long, slow breath and held it as his eyes fluttered open.

The ceiling above him was familiar, as was the white blanket draped haphazardly over his bare chest. He was still in Olivia's apartment. Not the fancy new one where he'd almost kissed her, but the small dark one where he'd fallen asleep. His heart fell at the realization; he had been hoping, desperately, that sleep would solve the same problem it seemed to have created, but no salvation had come for him while he dreamed. He was, still, a man caught in the wrong place, the wrong time. A man with nothing to his name save for the clothes on his back and the necklace in his pocket; he didn't have a wallet or a phone, didn't have so much as a clean pair of underwear.

What the fuck am I gonna do? He asked himself as he sat up slowly, scrubbing his hands over his face. Olivia had offered him a place to sleep for one night; would she be kind enough to do it again? This new Olivia, this different Olivia, she troubled him; she was unpredictable, in ways Liv never had been, and her attitude was more than just a cop's natural suspicion of a strange man telling a strange tale. What if it was all connected, he asked himself, the old apartment she'd never left, the way she'd drunk too much the night before, the hardness in her eyes; what if something had happened to this Olivia to make her like this, lonesome and closed off and untrusting?

His Liv wasn't exactly soft, he knew that, but she seemed more…forgiving, and he wondered if something had made her that way, too. He wasn't arrogant enough to think that something was just him.

Behind the closed door of Olivia's bedroom he heard the sound of water rushing through the pipes; she was awake, then, and in the shower, and as lost as he might have been she still had a job to do. There was no way, he thought, that she was planning to hang out in her apartment all day with him, and he figured he might as well do what he could to get ready to face the day himself.

He pulled his shirt back on, and folded up the blanket, and then padded quietly into the kitchen. He drank some water straight from the sink, rinsed his mouth for all the good it would do him. He didn't even have a fucking toothbrush.

A quick perusal of Olivia's kitchen counters revealed one of those single serve coffee makers, the kind that used pods and not fresh grounds, and he frowned. The years he'd spent in Italy had made him a bit of a snob when it came to coffee and wine and tailoring, but Liv had developed a taste for the finer things over the years, too; her clothes were well made, her jewelry subtle but expensive, and she kept a French press and an electric kettle on her counter. Apparently this Olivia wasn't half so fussy about her beverages, but the machine was easy enough to work. He found a stash of coffee pods and mugs in one of the cabinets, and set about making filling a travel cup for each of them. Somehow he didn't think Olivia would be interested in a long slow morning sipping coffee out of one of her chipped mugs with him.

While the coffee was going he opened up her fridge in search of milk - his Liv favored oat milk these days, or she had, before she died - and when he did he smiled despite himself. It looked exactly like Liv's fridge in the early days of their partnership, empty save for bottles of ketchup and mustard and soy sauce in the door and a half-eaten container of lo mein in the back. Liv had learned to feed herself while he was away, he knew; Liv cooked, these days, made decent meals for herself and her boy - sometimes. They were both fond of Shake Shack, and he'd promised Noah he'd take them there one day soon, but now Liv was dead and Noah was nowhere to be found and his smile vanished as quickly as it had come.

He closed the refrigerator and finished up with the coffee, and then he sat himself down on a stool by the bar, and waited for her to come out. It didn't take very long.

"Good morning," she said to him, a little uneasily, as she walked out of her bedroom, careful to close the door behind her. Her hair was still a little damp, caught in a clip behind her head, and she was wearing what he'd come to think of as her Captain's uniform: dark boots, dark slacks, dark blazer, her blouse buttoned all the way up to her collarbone. He could tell by the way she moved that her gun was already holstered at her hip.

"Morning," he answered. "There's coffee."

"Thanks."

She moved past him slowly, keeping her eyes on him all the while, like part of her was still waiting for him to jump her, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Evidently passing a quiet night together had not been sufficient to allay her suspicions entirely, but he couldn't really blame her for that.

"So, what's the plan?" he asked her. It was driving him crazy, how little control he had over his own life at present, but he needed her help. The city would not be kind to a dead man with no home and no money; he wouldn't last long without her, and he knew it.

"Well," she said slowly, holding the coffee he'd made for her though she'd yet to take a drink. "I have to go to work."

"I figured."

"And you're not staying here by yourself."

That was something she had in common with Liv, he thought; they'd both grown comfortable with their authority, and had no qualms about issuing orders.

"And I can't have you in my station all day."

"Doesn't leave many options, does it?" he grumbled. Couldn't stay here, couldn't go there, but she wanted to keep tabs on him; how the fuck did she expect to do that, when he didn't have a phone and she was about to kick him out on his ass?

"I was thinking," she said. "If you're telling the truth -" they were back to if, it seemed, and that frustrated him, too; he'd thought she was beginning to believe him the night before, but maybe that was just the five drinks she'd sucked down in rapid succession talking - "you're bound to have some questions. I can take you to the library. It'll keep you off the street and out of my hair."

It wasn't a terrible suggestion. The library had books and computers and bathrooms and comfortable chairs; he could pass the day there, researching all the crazy shit Munch had told him about string theory and alternate universes, and he could scour the internet for news about his family, about himself, about Olivia. Obituaries, articles, social media, surely there'd be plenty of information there, and it wasn't like he had anything else to do.

But he did not want to be parted from her. What if she just left him there, what if she had to work late and he was out on the street when the library closed? What if something happened? They'd never be able to reach each other.

We survived before cell phones, he tried to tell himself, but it rang hollow; there wasn't a single payphone left in the city, and people were suspicious these days.

"That might work," he said carefully. "But a guy's gotta eat."

"I can spot you some cash to get you through the day," she told him. "Don't get used to it, though."

It wasn't like she could - or would be willing to - support him indefinitely. If he was stuck here, truly, if this universe was to be his, he'd have to find some way to buy food, clothes, to put a roof over his head. How long would her hospitality last, he wondered; would she be willing to let him stay a week? Two? Would she only shelter him for the time it took the DNA results to come back, and then cut him loose when she had her answers?

"Olivia -"

"Look," she said. "I don't know what's gonna happen next any more than you do, ok? Let's just take it one day at a time. Today, I think this can work. We'll deal with tomorrow when it gets here."

"Ok," he said.

They didn't linger long in the apartment; Olivia drove him to the library, the car silent except for the mind-numbing dullness of NPR on the radio, and she dropped him at the corner in front of the library with a promise to pick him up by six. It wasn't a promise he expected her to keep, really; the job always kept Liv chained to her desk longer than she intended, and he didn't think it would go any differently for Olivia. He bought himself a bagel from a cart with some cash Olivia had given him and ate his breakfast sitting on a bench, watching the city come to life around him, surrounded by people who all seemed to have a purpose, a plan, things he was sorely lacking at the moment. The sun was shining, bathing the world in light, but darkness seemed to close in around him. He was more lonesome than he'd ever been in his entire fucking life.

When he was done with his bagel he made his way into the library. There was a girl behind the counter with blue hair and an easy smile and apparent anti-authoritarian streak; she got him set up with a library card even though he had no ID, and she led him to a bank of computers, showed him how to access the internet and told him to come to her with any questions. He thanked her profusely, and then sat for a moment staring at the monitor, trying to decide where to start.

He looked up the kids first. Found their Facebook pages, set to private and so revealing very little, save for their faces, smiling happily at him from little squares on the screen. Kathleen and Lizzie had LinkedIn pages, too, working for companies with unfamiliar names. Dickie's Twitter had a surprising number of followers, and Elliot passed some time just scrolling, reading words his son had written and trying to find comfort in them. The kids were here, at least, were alive and well. Kathy took longer to find; she'd gotten remarried, had a new name, and he couldn't look at her face for very long, found himself overcome with shame at the sight of it. Would his Kathy have moved on, found another man, been happy, if only he'd let her go when she tried to leave? Had he doomed her, by going back to the house, going back to her bed, starting the whole cycle up again? If he asked her, would she have said she wished he hadn't? He didn't think so, didn't think she'd trade Eli for anything, not even a happier, longer life, but Christ, he felt like an asshole, anyway. She'd made her choices, asked him to stay, opened her arms to him, but would she, if she'd known how it would end?

Searching for his family had brought him no peace, and so he decided to try a different tactic. Liv had admonished him once, on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse on a grim night, had been angry with him for not asking about what she'd been through while he was away. He hadn't asked because he'd been afraid of what she might say, and he hadn't looked her up because it felt like a breach of trust, somehow, to Google things he knew she'd rather tell him herself. He hadn't done it, and now it was too late; he'd never hear the truth in Liv's own words. But he wanted to know, still. Wanted to know the course this Olivia's life had taken, how it differed from Liv's, how it was the same. He didn't want to waste any more time.

He typed Captain Olivia Benson into the search bar.