The images floated through her mind, washed over and around and through one another, the transition from each moment so nebulous as to be nearly nonexistent; one second she was standing in a crowded train station, furiously scanning the crowd, and in the next instant she was in a verdant green park with Noah, laughing and without care. How she'd moved from one place to the next she could not say; no sooner had she begun to grasp one flash of understanding than it was ripped from her and replaced with something inexplicable. Darkness, and the sound of a woman retching; a brilliant white light, and a woman's soothing voice murmuring words Olivia could not fathom. Heat, then burning, a bright searing pain and the acrid smell of something rotten and unholy on the air, and then screaming, screaming, screaming, her voice, someone else's, she wasn't sure, and it didn't really seem to matter. Just screaming, roaring louder and louder, and a visceral, physical fear, the rush of oncoming calamity, and die, she thought you're gonna die, you're gonna -

Liv! A man's voice cried, so loud and sharp and full of grief it shattered her dream to pieces, a brilliant explosion of light and a noise like breaking glass and tearing metal and then she was suddenly, mercifully awake, panting in her own bed, her hairline slick with sweat and her heart racing, pounding so hard it made her ache.

A dream. It was only a dream. A dream that was fading with each of her too-fast heartbeats; she tried, really she did, to hold on to some fragment of it, tried desperately to store some recollection of it away to be examined later, but it was not to be. The dream faded, and took with it any secrets it might have unearthed from the depths of her subconscious. All that remained was fear, sharp and brittle. Terror, really, though she could not name its source. Why should she be afraid? She was safe at home, her every need provided for. She was a simple, ordinary woman, living a simple, ordinary life.

Wasn't she?

The scars; she touched them now as she tried to calm herself, ran her fingertips over the scars that dotted her chest, and wondered. The fear she felt now; did it come from the same place as those scars? Did the fear outlive her memories, survive when all else was lost? What sort of fear could live so long, starved of recollection? What had happened to her?

The small digital clock beside her bed read 2:43 a.m. It was the middle of the night, but she couldn't imagine going back to sleep, not now. The dream had flooded her body with adrenaline and her hands were still shaking with it; she'd find no peace in her bed. Alone in the dark with nothing to do but ask herself questions she could not answer, she rose slowly to her feet, and looked around the room, trying to decide what she ought to do next.

So far she'd not explored the room much. Just the bedside table; she'd opened the drawer and rummaged through it, had fallen asleep still clutching the picture of Liv and El, '99 in her hands. There was so much left for her to discover, so many drawers yet to be opened. Drawers, and closets, and boxes, the house was bursting with things. And yet she felt reticent, somehow, hesitant to begin her investigation in earnest. The photo of El, whoever he was, had been both reassuring and alarming. Reassuring, because now she knew that man was real, and alarming, because she knew he was not her husband and she kept his picture hidden away. What if he was dead, just like Ed? When she and Malcolm got her phone back tomorrow - or later today, really - what if there was no contact for El in it? What if she'd lost him, somewhere along the way? What if she'd lost him on purpose; what if something had happened, something bad, to make them despise one another? She wanted to believe that if she could only speak to El his voice would somehow unlock the secret compartment in her heart where all her memories had been hidden, but was that perhaps a bit naive? She didn't know him.

She didn't know anyone.

Frustrated, then, she turned away, and slipped quietly out of her room. No, she decided, no she would not go looking in her closet just yet. It was very, very late, and she was frightened, and she wasn't sure she was ready for more shocking revelations. A glass of water, that would be enough. Maybe she'd peruse the books on the shelves, find something nice and calming to read, to distract herself, to remind herself that she could. That wouldn't be so bad.

On her way to the kitchen she stopped off at Noah's bedroom, opened the door as carefully and as quietly as she could, and stood for a moment in the doorway, watching him sleep, peaceful and at rest. Love, like fear, seemed to have outlasted her ability to remember it; she loved that little boy, felt that love warming her from the inside out. He was sweet, in sleep, and precious to her, and happy it seemed to have his mother home. Please, she thought, please let him be happy.

But as she stood there watching her son a door opened behind her, and she turned to watch as Malcolm stepped into view, rubbing sleepily at his eyes. He was dressed for bed in a loose pair of shorts and a white t-shirt, his thick hair mussed in an appealing sort of way, and really, she thought, really he was a handsome man. A handsome man, and a kind one, and here to look out for her. Surely her fear was no match for the comfort of a friend.

"Olivia?" he called her name softly, hoarsely. "Is everything all right?"

She closed Noah's door before answering him.

"I had a bad dream," she confessed. "I got up to get some water, and…" her voice trailed off as she struggled to explain herself, but Malcolm just smiled, a soft smile that seemed to glimmer with understanding.

"You wanted to check on him," he finished for her. "It's all right, Olivia. You always do that, you know. When you can't sleep. You always go and look in on him."

It wasn't fair, she thought, wasn't fair at all, that Malcolm should remember things about her that she'd forgotten.

"I'm going to make us some tea," Malcolm said then. "Would you like some?"

There wasn't really anything else to do at this time of night, and she'd be grateful for the company anyway, so Olivia just hummed her agreement and followed him to the kitchen, sat down on a stool by the bar and watched while Malcolm deftly began to gather the things he'd need for tea, and just like he'd done at dinner he seemed to know precisely where everything was without having to be told.

"What did you dream about?" he asked while he worked.

"I don't know," Olivia grumbled. "I can't remember. But it was…scary. I woke up scared."

"Maybe it was the accident," Malcolm suggested thoughtfully. "It hasn't been that long since it happened, and it must have been really scary."

Maybe it was; Olivia didn't know. That was something else she wanted to ask the police; she wanted to ask exactly how her car had crashed, why, what she'd hit - or what had hit her - and no one she'd talked to so far seemed to know, not even Malcolm. But it wasn't the car accident that she'd dreamed about; at least, she didn't think it was.

"I think it was something else," she said slowly. She had a choice to make, just now; she could tell Malcolm the truth, tell him what she was afraid of, and hear what he had to say, or she could keep it to herself. It might be good to talk to someone, someone who knew her, about the things that troubled her, but it wasn't his problem to solve, was it? Whatever had happened to her, it had nothing to do with him, and she didn't want him to misunderstand her, or worse, to pity her, to offer her mealy-mouthed platitudes and pat her on the head. The indignity of her circumstances was beginning to weigh on her.

But she wanted to know. And the only way she was ever going to learn anything was by asking questions.

"I have these scars," she forced herself to say, shifting uncomfortably on her stool. "They look…awful. I think something happened to me, Malcolm. I think it was something bad."

Malcolm paused in his efforts with the tea, turned around to face her with heartbreak in his eyes.

"I wish I could tell you that wasn't true," he said. "But…something bad did happen, Olivia. You never told me what, you never wanted to talk about your scars, but whatever it was, I know it…it was bad."

"Have you seen them?" she asked before she could stop herself. Those marks, they were all hidden away, left in places her clothes would cover, the soft, private parts of her body a friend should never have seen, but Malcolm spoke as if he knew about them already. Just how much of her body had been revealed to him in the past? How close were they, really?

"Look," he said, sighing, turning back around to finish up the tea. "I didn't want to bring this up right away. You need time to rest and find your feet, you don't need me to make things more complicated than they already are. But…yeah, I've seen your scars. You and I, we've been…we've been spending time together, the last few weeks."

"Spending time together," she repeated. Surely he didn't mean -

"In bed, Olivia."

The tea was done, and he brought it to her then, placed a cup down in front of her and then sat heavily on the stool beside her.

What the hell is going on here? She wondered faintly, reaching for her tea, desperate for something to hold, something to ground her while the world spun madly out of control all around her. Her husband had been dead for six months and she was already sleeping with his friend? What kind of wife, what kind of woman did that make her? Had she been terribly unhappy, with Ed? Was she happier with Malcolm?

"I want you to know, that's not why I'm here," he told her firmly. "I'm sleeping in the guest room, and I'm not trying to…start anything, right now. I'm here because I care about you and Noah, and I want to make sure you guys are safe. That's all."

Was it a kindness, she wondered, his initial choice not to tell her they'd been sleeping together? Maybe in his eyes it was, but all she could see was that he'd been keeping secrets from her. What else was he hiding? Was he telling the truth, every time he said he didn't know, she hadn't told him, or was he lying about everything?

"Please, say something," he urged her gently.

"My husband's only been dead for six months."

"Yeah." Malcolm at least had the good grace to look ashamed of himself. "I feel guilty about that, sometimes. Ed was a good man. He was a good friend. And I know he wouldn't be happy about me…"

"Spending time-"

"Spending time with his wife. But he's gone, and we both miss him. We're both a little lonely. These things happen, Olivia. We didn't do anything wrong."

"How could I move on so quickly if I really loved him?"

Ed was her husband, and she did not know the sound of his voice. She only knew his face from the photograph in the foyer; it was a nice face, a face she thought she could love, but try though she might she could not remember the feeling of loving him.

Maybe I never did.

Maybe Olivia Benson, whoever she was, wasn't a very nice person.

"You didn't move on," Malcolm told her simply. "Having sex with someone else isn't the same thing as not loving your husband. I still love my wife, and she's been dead for five years. We just learn to do both, you know? To love someone who's gone, and still enjoy being with someone who's here."

She wanted, very much, to believe him. Everything he said sounded so nice, so simple. Malcolm made things easy, when everything seemed so hard. It would be easy, to believe him. To drink her tea, and do what he said, and believe him. They could have something nice here, her and Malcolm, in this little house, drinking tea, watching Noah play.

But it isn't real, a little voice whispered in the back of her mind. Nice was not the same thing as true.

"I think I'm going back to bed," she said heavily.

"Do you want…are you ok being alone?"

It looked, in the moment, very much as if he expected her to ask him to join her. Part of her wanted to say yes; it might be nice, having another person beside her, a warm body in her bed, strong arms to hold her. It might feel safe. But it wasn't right. An instinctual, reflexive part of her heart seemed to warn her against leaning on him too much, and so she decided not to.

"I'll be fine," she said, and then she drifted off back down the hall, toward her bedroom, and left Malcolm alone in the kitchen.