There was something about him, she decided. Something confident, perhaps bordering on arrogant, even now, in this moment when he must have been terrified - either he was telling the truth, and so found himself in a topsy-turvy parallel universe where nothing made sense, or he was lying and knew he'd be caught as soon as Sergeant Bell came walking through the door, and either way Olivia figured he had to be at least somewhat nervous. He didn't look it, though. He was sprawled back in his chair, thick arms crossed over his chest - and Jesus, she thought, this guy must spend a lot of time in the gym, to have arms like that - his legs spread wide, his posture comfortable. Tall and broad, muscular and confident, he just took up so much space, and wasn't about to make any apologies for it. There was a prominent vein throbbing in the side of his thick neck - a sign of tension, perhaps, but the only visible one he gave - and the silver cross he wore on a chain there had worked its way out from underneath his grey henley, and that was strange, too, she thought. Not strange that some freak who'd wandered into her squadroom was religious, she'd seen that more times than she could count, but the cross, and the confidence, and his wild story, none of it seemed to add up.

It interested her, though. He was interesting. She had no idea, yet, what his endgame was, how he'd come to know so much about her and what he meant to do now that they were face to face. He wasn't entreating her, anymore, wasn't pleading with her, wasn't asking for a single goddamn thing; it felt like he was waiting. Waiting for Bell, probably, maybe, waiting for his boss to turn up and corroborate his story. Only she couldn't, could she; his story was that he was a different Elliot Stabler, from a different time and place, and Bell was a cop, not a theoretical physicist. She couldn't verify his claim, not really. All she'd be able to do was confirm that her Elliot was dead, and confirm whether this man was anything like the one she'd known.

Still, though, it felt to Olivia like Stabler - it was easier just to call him that, for now - was waiting for something. He was watching her, the intensity of his blue eyes radiating an almost palpable heat, his gaze never wavering from her face.

He's gotta be full of shit, Olivia told herself as she looked back, returned that stare with a steady one of her own. He didn't look like a liar, though. He wasn't trying to charm her pants off, wasn't slick and practiced and polished and professional. There had been a desperation in him, in the beginning, and now there was only this steady silence, this strange, inexplicable certainty, as if he didn't need her to believe him, as if his belief in himself was enough.

"How you long you gonna sit there staring at me?" he asked her suddenly, and the rumble of his voice was unexpected, not just the sound of it tearing through the silence but the impact it had on her. She liked his voice. Like his voice, liked his eyes, liked the breadth of his shoulders. He wasn't the kind of handsome that opened doors; he was the kind of handsome that kicked them in, and she'd always had a soft spot for a brawler.

"You're one to talk about staring," she answered cooly. He'd done nothing but stare at her for ten minutes now.

"You got questions," he said. "I can see it in you, Liv. Just ask 'em."

Motherfucker, she thought. He was right, of course; her heart was full of questions. But anyone with eyes could have seen that she was uncomfortable, that she was curious, it wasn't proof that he had any personal knowledge of her, her habits, her expressions. Any con man would've said the same.

"Why do you keep calling me Liv?" she said.

"That's your name," he answered with a shrug. "I don't know when I started calling you that. Early on, I think. Then everybody else picked it up. When I came back, that's the only thing anybody called you."

He'd given her a nickname, in his alternate universe. No one else had really done that for her before. Oh, she'd had boyfriends call her baby, honey, sweetheart, all the usual, but she'd always been Olivia. It was a strange choice to make, a strange risk to take, she thought, inventing a nickname for her; was he being clever, adding depth to his story? Or was he telling the truth? Somewhere out there, on some other side of the cosmos, had there been a version of her someone cared about enough to gift with a new name?

If there was, she's dead now, Olivia thought.

"What else do you know about me?" she asked carefully. It freaked her out a little, that thing he'd said about her being in love with a much older man. How had he found out about Burton? How far into her past had he dug?

"Things are different here," Stabler said. "I don't know what's the same, what's changed."

"Why don't you tell me about your Liv, then?"

He actually smiled, just a little. Not a full smile, not a pleased smile or a smug one, not the smile of a man who'd caught her in a trap. It was fleeting smile, and a sad one.

"She's got a kid named Noah," he said. "I guess he's about twelve. He's sweet. He dances ballet. She always wanted to be a mom, and her dream finally came true."

Fuck you, Olivia thought, a flash of anger surging through her like lightning. The subject of children was a painful one, for her; she'd always, always, dreamed of having a family, a place to belong, a child of her own to love, and it had never happened, and now she was too old, and too lonely, and it never would.

"I don't have any kids," she said tightly.

"That's a shame." It sounded like he meant it; his voice was gentle, like he wasn't trying to rub salt in the wound. His words did, anyway. "Liv's a great mom. I don't know what's gonna happen to Noah now." His brow furrowed as he spoke, as if in genuine worry.

"What about his dad?"

Stabler shook his head. "Nah, kid's adopted, she did it all herself. She doesn't have anybody."

Nobody but you.

"No one at all?"

"I mean she's got friends. Good people who care about her. I don't know, I don't think she's been seeing anybody since I got back. There were a few while I was gone. One named Ed."

That's it, Olivia thought, and rose up from her chair, turned her back on him. His stare was disarming, the fond way he spoke about Liv - about her - tempting like the bottle of red on top of her fridge was tempting, a pleasure full of risk with very little reward. She needed to break that stare, needed to put some distance between herself and this stranger, needed a moment to breathe and bring her heartbeat back under control.

How dare this motherfucker mention Ed's name? How dare he say it so casually, as if it meant nothing at all, as if Ed was just another man in a long line of men his Liv had fucked, just a name? How dare he deploy this weapon against her; Christ, she was angry, but she was scared, too. It wasn't just the things Stabler knew that frightened her, wasn't just the prospect of a stranger combing through her life like this; no, she was afraid of how badly she wanted to hear what he had to say.

"Did I hit a nerve?" he asked.

Her resolve to keep her back on him waivered; she couldn't help but turn back around to face him.

"You know exactly what you're doing," Olivia fired back.

"I know her Ed died," Stabler said, and as he spoke he leaned forward, rested his forearms on the table and looked up at her curiously. "From your reaction I'm guessing yours did, too. Will you tell me what happened? She never would tell me, and I've been wondering for a while now."

"He was my husband, you piece of shit," Olivia snarled. "And he killed himself, but you know that already."

Ed had been the one. The only one she'd let get that close to her, the only one she'd ever really let herself imagine a future with. The one she'd married, the one she'd talked about having babies with, until she came home one night to find their apartment full of cops and her husband in a body bag.

"I didn't know," Stabler said solemnly, earnestly. "I swear, Olivia, I didn't know."

It wasn't lost on her that he'd called her Olivia that time. Maybe because he was trying to bond with her, maybe because it was the next phase in his mind games, or maybe because he was starting to accept that whoever she was, she wasn't his Liv.

"You said she's your best friend, and she didn't tell you what happened to her husband?"

"They didn't get married," he said. "She told me they came close, but then he died. It must have been…the timing of it all must have been different."

If he was telling the truth, if he was from a parallel universe, she could accept the idea that some things would be different, from one world to the next. In this one she'd never met Stabler; in his universe, they'd been friends for a quarter century. In his world he never got divorced, had a fifth kid; in her world, she'd married Ed, and never adopted a son. But why would those things be different? What would trigger those changes?

He'd hurt her, and she wanted, very much, to hurt him right back, and she wanted some fucking answers.

"You said you had five kids," she told him. "You said there was one called Eli."

"Yeah, that's our youngest," Stabler said, shifting back in his chair, though he still seemed a little bothered by their conversation. "Kath named him after me."

"There is no Eli," she told him. "We pulled your file. You've only got four kids, and Kathy left you in 2007, and she's still alive and kicking."

It was his turn to be angry; she saw it, in the flash of his eyes, in the tightening of his jaw. He wasn't the only one who knew how to read people's expressions. He ran his hand over the back of his head like he was trying to bring himself back under control, and took a minute before he allowed himself to speak.

"In a fucked up way that makes sense," he grumbled.

"Enlighten me," she said testily.

"We were separated around that time. But I caught a bad case. I went to the house to see the kids. I needed to see the kids. Kathy was there, and she asked me to stay, and one thing led to another, and she came up pregnant with Eli. I came back home to help take care of the baby and we never officially divorced. But here, in this universe, I never worked SVU. So I never caught that case, and we never had Eli, and I never came back home."

Munch had talked about string theory, and he'd talked about the Kennedy assassination, and he'd talked, sometimes, about something like this. The butterfly effect. The way one little moment, one little event, could have repercussions that echoed out through time, in ways no one expected. Stabler worked SVU, Stabler got his wife pregnant, Stabler and his wife stayed together, and however many years later she died in a car bombing. Stabler didn't work SVU, Stabler's wife never had that fifth baby, Stabler's wife left him, Stabler's wife lived. It made sense, in a twisted, fucked up way.

How did he come up with that story? She asked herself now, looking at him. Stabler seemed to have an answer for everything; was it all just an act, just a bit of theater for her benefit? Why the fuck would he go to so much trouble, map out all these explanations, invent all these inconsistencies that would only make her doubt him? His affect was natural, as if he were telling the truth. Or as if he had rehearsed it so much he was starting to believe it.

Occam's razor; the simplest answer is often the correct one. Think horses, not zebras, that's what they told her at the academy. Problem was, she was pretty sure she was looking at a fucking giraffe; none of the possible explanations for this were simple.

Before she could ask another question they were interrupted by the sound of knuckles rapping on glass; someone on the other side of the mirror wanted her attention. Maybe Bell had finally arrived; maybe she was about to get some clarity.

"I'll be back," she said, marching across the room.

"I'm not going anywhere," Stabler answered.