It was a risk, the Shirley Temple. Patronizing, maybe, just a little; he'd have called it protective, and it was, but there was something possessive about it, too. Not giving her what she'd asked for, giving her what he thought was right instead. Like he had the right to choose for her. Her reaction surprised him; he was pretty sure if he'd done that to Liv she'd have poured the drink over his head, but Olivia accepted the drink with grace, even told him something he'd never heard before, that bit about her ordering Shirley Temples when she was a child out to dinner with her mother. There was no way to know if Liv had done the same thing - if she had she'd never told him about it - but he liked to think she did. He liked to think she had some fond remembrances of her mother. Then again, maybe it wasn't so fond; little Liv, ordering a drink, watching her mother bathe herself in wine. Maybe it wasn't a happy memory. Maybe he shouldn't have done it.

"So," Olivia said. "How was your day?"

Her eyes were sparkling at him just a little, like she thought it was kinda funny, the trick he pulled, them talking to each other across the bar. Maybe it was funny, a little. It made him think about the whole parallel universe thing; maybe in some other universe out there Uncle Mick had left the bar to him instead of Joe Jr. Maybe in that other universe he'd been working the bar when this pretty cop walked in, and maybe they'd started chatting. Maybe they found each other everywhere, everytime, no matter what. Christ, he hoped so.

" 's good," he said. He'd asked her first, how her day was, and she'd told him about Warner and the DNA, the confirmation of what he'd always known. He was Elliot Stabler; there was plenty to be confused about just now, but that one truth remained solid and steady in his chest. He knew who he was.

"Brian treat you ok?" she asked, and it sounded kinda like she thought the answer to that question might be no. Elliot wished she'd stop calling Cassidy Brian; it felt too familiar, made him ask himself too many questions. Questions about how they'd reconnected and just what they meant to each other and just how Liv might have felt about her Brian, once. Questions he wasn't sure he wanted the answers to.

"Yeah," Elliot said. Yeah, Cassidy had treated him ok. Showed him where everything was, hadn't snapped at him or barked orders. Had ignored him, for a lot of the long slow afternoon shift, but silence was better than a fight.

"Can I ask you something, though?" Elliot added. He couldn't help himself.

She quirked her eyebrow at him in a way that seemed to say go on, then, so he did.

"What happened to that guy?"

She looked away.

That had always been Liv's tell. When she was about to lie to him, hide something from him, deliver a half-truth and hope he'd just leave it alone, she'd look away. Liv was ten pounds of trouble in a five pound sack but she wasn't comfortable lying; she'd always been a little bit bad at going undercover, always struggled with pretend, always wore her heart on her sleeve, at least as far as he was concerned. Liv didn't like to lie, and it looked to him like Olivia didn't, either.

"I don't know what you mean," she said.

Bullshit, he thought.

"The Cassidy I remember, he was a sweet kid. A little dumb, maybe, a little naive, but he was soft, gentle. SVU was too hard on his heart, he had to leave, didn't even make it a year. This guy…this guy is something else."

This Cassidy was hard, wary and reactionary and grim, and Brian Cassidy had been a lot of things when Elliot knew him, but grim wasn't one of them. Elliot still remembered a kid looking up at him with big eyes, talking about how he wanted a family, asking for help navigating the darkness of the world they inhabited. This Cassidy looked like he'd sooner die than ask anyone for help.

"He's been through a lot," Olivia said simply.

Like you, Elliot thought. They'd talked about it a little, Lewis and what he'd done to her, and Elliot couldn't help but wonder if maybe that was the difference. If maybe his Liv had never crossed paths with William Lewis at all, and that was the reason for all the changes between the Liv he knew and the Olivia in front of him. He prayed that was the reason; if it was, that meant Liv never suffered the way Olivia did. It meant he hadn't failed her. Maybe that was a selfish thing to wish for.

"But you're doing ok?" she said, changing the topic deftly. "You think this'll work out?"

"It's early days," he said. "But yeah, I think it'll be all right."

That felt strange to say. How could it ever be all right, him trapped here in this universe where his kids thought he was dead and he didn't even know where Noah was, while somewhere out there were six kids who needed him? He was a cop, not a goddamn bartender. It felt good, though. It felt good the way being Eddie Ashes had felt good; a good that was gonna hurt, a good that scared him. Eddie had been good, because as long as he was Eddie he didn't have to be Elliot. All his doubts, his fears, his grief, his fucking obligations, had been cast to the side, and he'd revelled in a strange and dangerous freedom. It had cost him, though. Being Eddie Ashes had hurt Liv and damaged his relationship with Eli and befriending Reggie only to turn on him had tarnished a little piece of Elliot's soul. All those problems he was running from, going under hadn't made them go away; it only made them worse. Eddie Ashes was good like a drug; the first hit felt like heaven, but the addiction gave him hell.

This was like that, he thought. A tantalizing promise. A second chance, a fresh start, Olivia watching him thoughtfully across the bar, trailing her fingertips around the rim of her glass. What would it be like, to be this version of himself? To be Elliot the bartender, off the grid, half-dead with a clean slate? He was gonna find out, he figured, because he had to earn a living and he had no way home. Good or bad, dangerous or not, he was here, and that was where he was going to stay.

Maybe it was a blessing. A chance to try again. To do things different; to be different. To see who he might be, in a world where no one knew him. What would he do, if he could do anything?

I'd dance with her, he thought, looking at Olivia. She was gorgeous, with that lush body, those dark doe's eyes, that sinful mouth, and she was tough as nails, bold as brass, steady as the roll of thunder in a storm and deadly as lightning. She intrigued him, made him smile, made him want to be with her, with her, with this Olivia who seemed so hard but had softened for him, just a little. He wanted to see her softer. He wanted to hold her in his arms. He wanted to come out from behind the bar and take her in his arms and spin her around the floor to whatever 70s ballad Cassidy had playing over the speakers.

Maybe one day I will, he thought. Really, he had nothing but time.

"What are you thinking?" she asked him, watching him curiously, warily, like she wasn't sure she was gonna like the answer.

What would he say, if he could say anything he wanted to?

"You look good," he said gruffly.

He'd never told her that before. Not her, not Liv. At least, not like this. How many times had he seen her dressed up for a date, or an undercover operation, all tits and ass and long long legs, sex on a fucking stick, and held his tongue? How many times had he looked at her over reams of paperwork in the middle of the night, seen her gnawing on the end of her pencil and thought how he'd never seen a prettier woman in his entire goddamn life, and never said a word? Beautiful, that's what he'd always wanted to say to her, what he wanted to say to her now, but old habits were hard to break. Good was gonna have to do.

It looked like he'd surprised her, caught her off guard, maybe; she actually blushed.

"I look like hell," she said. "I look like I've been on my feet all damn day."

That's when I like you best, he thought. But that wasn't right; his favorite memories of Liv were her at the end of a long day, the pair of them together, tired but whole. He didn't know yet what his favorite Olivia would be. She'd not shown him all the sides to herself, not by half.

Maybe one day she'll wear one of those dresses for me, he thought, and then felt guilty for it. Wouldn't it be a disservice to Liv, if he chased after her doppelganger, when he'd never been brave enough to kiss his Liv? Could he be unfaithful to Liv if she'd never let him claim her, was it even a betrayal if the one he wanted to touch was just another version of her? Was it unfair to Olivia, to want her this bad, to look at her this way, when she didn't know him, when she wasn't the one who'd walked by his side for a decade and more?

It mattered. He knew it mattered, and he didn't want to fuck it up, but he felt himself spinning, just a little. Trying to come terms with where he was and what he wanted to do next and she was just sitting there, sipping that drink, everything he'd ever wanted looking right back at him. She was a lot of things Liv wasn't, but the most important of all was simply this: she was alive. She was the one who was here. She was the one who might give him a chance, when he'd never see his Liv again.

"Listen," he said. "I gotta tell you, I'm grateful to you for everything you've done. I'd be fucked without you, I want you to know that."

The crude words fell a little easier from his lips with this Olivia than they had with Liv. This Olivia didn't seem to mind.

"Elliot-"

"But I know you didn't sign up to have some stranger living on your couch indefinitely. I can earn a little money, get out of your hair soon enough. I just wanna know if…in the meantime…"

She'd said she wanted to keep him around until she got the DNA results, and she had those, and part of him was worried she was about to cut him loose. Not that he could blame her, she'd already given him more than he deserved and she didn't owe him shit, but he didn't want to leave her, not yet. Not only because he didn't know where the fuck he was supposed to go; he found he slept a little easier, knowing she was near. He didn't want to give that up. He'd been sleeping on his own for such a long time now.

"Stay," she said. This time she met his eye; she wasn't lying. "I don't want you on the street. And it's been…" she looked away. "It's been going fine, you and me, hasn't it? We can keep it up a little while longer."

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I think we got a good thing going."

Good like a needle in a vein, maybe. But good, still.