Memory, Malcolm decided, was a heavy burden to bear. The weight of it, of every mistake, every missed opportunity, every failure, began to drag a person down, after a time. Without that weight upon her shoulders Olivia seemed lighter, somehow, her eyes brighter and dancing with life, her heart more open than he had ever known it to be. Sure, she was afraid, frightened and uncertain, and sad, a bit, perhaps, as anyone would be sad to wake and learn they were as lonely as Olivia had always seemed to be, but the sorrow did not drown her, did not keep her apart from him the way it had done before.

She knew her husband was dead, but she did not remember him, and without memory grief lost its sting.

Would I want to forget, Malcolm wondered, watching Olivia snuggling with her son while Malcolm made their dinner; would I forget Maria, if I could, just to make losing her not hurt so much? He ached with it sometimes, missing her. It was five years now since his wife had died and he missed her, still, always, found himself every now and again turning to speak to a woman who was not there. If he lost his memories, he'd lose the missing, too.

No, he thought. Probably not worth it. Maybe he'd be happier, and maybe his steps would be lighter, if he did not remember his wife, but in forgetting his grief he would also be forced to forget his joy. Every happy memory, every moment of blessed, blissful love, he would lose them all. He would rather hurt, and remember, than lose the precious memories of the woman he'd loved, and forget.

It was all hypothetical, anyway, what he'd do if, if he had control of it, if he had a choice. There had been no choice at all, for Olivia; she'd been stripped of all of it, the good and bad both, and was left to muddle through, to forge a new path with no memory of what had come before. It had hurt her, listening to Ed's voice on the phone, anyone with two eyes could've seen that, but would she have hurt more, worse, deeper, if she remembered him? The tears she'd tried to hide, had those tears been for Ed, or for herself? Did it matter?

Probably not.

So sure, yes, of course she was sad now, of course he had seen that sorrow in her, but it was a different kind of sad. Not the sad he had known, as she was not the woman he'd known. The Olivia from before the accident was made of sterner stuff than the woman sitting at the kitchen table with her child on her lap. The Olivia Malcolm remembered was hard as nails, removed from the world, her heart hidden behind a brick wall that, try though he might, Malcolm had not been able to climb. She'd kept secrets from him, told him nothing of her life before, of this person Stabler she'd been calling, of Fin and their plans for Christmas, of the scars that marred the tender skin of her breasts. How she'd met Ed, what their life had been like before, why they chose to leave it, these things she had not shared with him. She'd let him crawl between her thighs, let him bury himself inside her and thrust them both to glorious release, but she'd always rolled away from him, after, and kept her heart closed to him.

Not so now, he thought. Oh she was trying, still, to be brave, to be strong; she'd wiped those tears from her cheeks and changed the subject so quickly, when they went through the phone, refused to let him hold her the night before though she was obviously scared and lonely. Nature versus nurture; as with all things he thought the truth was somewhere in the middle. That no person was shaped only by their nature, or only by the way they'd been raised, the experiences they'd had; everyone was a bit of both. Olivia had lost the lessons of her nurturing and so perhaps what remained now was only her nature; inquisitive, and kind, and resistant to vulnerability. She was all of that, still, but now when she tried to disguise her emotions she did so with all the fumbling indelicacy of a child. He could see her, now, all of her, in a way he'd never before been allowed, and what he saw only made him care for her more. She'd always been beautiful, intriguing, clever and funny, and she was all of those things now, too, only now she could not protect herself, not as she had done before.

It's my turn now, he thought. It was his turn to protect her, to help her uncover the layers of herself slowly. He feared what might happen, if she went too fast, feared it might overwhelm her. Wherever the long road of her life had taken her, wherever she'd been before she was here, it was a place of darkness and pain, and he did not want to let that darkness take her from him. Christ, he'd nearly lost her - Noah had nearly lost her - the day of the accident, just as Malcolm and his daughter had lost his wife Maria, and it had taken him hard, harder than he expected. Since he'd turned fifty-five the people around him had begun to die, not just Maria and Ed but other friends, older friends; these days he attended far more funerals than weddings. He needed something to hold on to; why not her? Olivia cared for him, she must have; she'd let him into her bed weeks ago, let him hold her, even if she turned her heart away, and now she was leaning on him, trusting him, and that trust began to fill up the empty hole in his chest dug out by grief. They could find happiness for themselves here, he thought, him and Olivia and little Noah, if Olivia only let him.

For the moment she seemed content to have him here, leaned on him, turned her sweet face to him with eyes begging him to show her the way, and he was. Or he was trying, at least, to find a way forward, for all of them. It felt good, having someone rely on him again, and a part of him did not want Olivia's memories to return, and pull her away from him once more. Not that he had much say in the matter; she was remembering, here and there, whether she wanted to admit it or not. The longer she held that phone the more sure her hands had become; she knew the way, even if she could not articulate it just yet. She'd remembered the code for the phone, and maybe she remembered what it meant, too. Maybe her memories would come back all on their own, no matter what he did.

While he pondered the question of memory, the question of Olivia, he finished plating up their dinner, and it was very nearly ready when her phone began to ring. Malcolm had brought the phone into the kitchen at her request, left it charging on the counter close to hand, and when it began to ring her eyes lit up.

"Malcolm," she called to him in a voice that dripped with hope.

"I'll get it."

He grabbed the phone. Fin calling, it said; so her friend had received her message, and was calling her back.

"Here," he said as he rushed to bring the phone to her, "it's Fin."

He swiped his thumb across the screen to answer the call for her, and turned it on speakerphone as he went. That was an impulse, not a well-thought through decision, but it could not be undone; Olivia did not even seem to realize what he'd done.

"What do I do?" she asked him, holding the phone awkwardly balanced on the palm of her hand.

"Say hello."

"Hello?" she said, pitching her voice a little louder, lifting the phone closer to her mouth, though she didn't succeed in pointing the microphone the right direction.

"That you, Liv?" a man's voice echoed back. Ed used to call her Liv, sometimes, Malcolm remembered. He'd never been brave enough to do it himself.

"It's me," she said, relieved. And wasn't that funny, he thought, that she responded to Liv without hesitation, when neither Malcolm or Rosie ever called by that name? Maybe she was remembering that, too.

"Are you Fin?"

There was a beat of silence, the briefest, most uncomfortable of pauses, and Malcolm felt for the man, really he did; the two of them were old friends, apparently, but suddenly his friend didn't recognize the sound of his voice. What must he have been thinking, in that moment? What would I do, Malcolm wondered, if I was in his shoes?

"Are you ok?" Fin asked sharply. "You don't sound like yourself."

The message she'd left him had been stumbling and impersonal, and Fin had clearly noticed something was off.

"I'm ok," Olivia said. "There was an accident, about a week ago. I…I don't remember anything."

"You don't remember the accident?"

He's gotta be a cop, too, Malcolm thought. The phone call was beginning to sound like an interrogation.

"No, I don't remember anything. I don't remember who I am, or who you are, or my husband, or anything."

"Jesus," Fin muttered softly. "Are you safe? I can be there in…" he paused for a moment, maybe checking his watch, "like two hours. You at a hospital, or something?"

"I'm safe, I'm fine," Olivia said. She was smiling, while she talked, the fingers of her free hand drifting through Noah's soft curls. She looked happy, relieved, even, to be speaking to someone who knew her. "I'm at home, I've got some good friends to look after me."

"That's good," Fin said. "I still wanna come see you, though."

He must've been a good friend indeed, Malcolm thought, if he was willing to drop everything, leave the city and drive to this sleepy town upstate just to check in on his friend. Had he fucked her, too? Maybe that was an unkind thought to have, but it festered in the back of Malcolm's mind regardless.

"I hope you will. I've got so many questions. I want…I want to know who I am."

"I can tell you that, Liv," Fin said. "Any question you got, I can answer it. If you're good for tonight, if you got somebody taking care of you, I'll come up first thing tomorrow. That work for you?"

"That works," she said earnestly, eagerly. "I'd love that, really. Thank you so much."

Does she sound anything like the woman he remembers? Malcolm wondered. Or does he hear it, too? How different she is, without all that sadness getting in the way?

"Ok. I'll call in the morning let you know what time I'm coming. I got you."

"I just have one question right now, if that's ok?"

This Olivia was more conciliatory, Malcolm had noticed, hesitant to put people out, to push too hard. The old Olivia had never been quite so careful.

"Whatever you need." Malcolm had been hesitant to tell Olivia too much, but not so her friend Fin; he seemed ready and willing to give her everything, anything at all. There was something in his voice that sounded like devotion.

"I made a call, right before the accident. I called someone named Stabler. Do you know who that is?"

At that question Fin went real, real quiet. Maybe he wasn't ready to give her anything, after all. Maybe he knew a thing or two about that darkness Malcolm was so worried about. It was an honest to God accident, an unintentional oversight, him not seeing the call to Stabler on the list; he'd just been distracted, worried about what they were gonna find on the phone. Now he was beginning to wish that Olivia hadn't seen it, either. Whoever Stabler was, maybe they were somebody she didn't need to remember.

"He's a friend," Fin said, very, very carefully. "I'll tell you more about it tomorrow. Just, uh, do me a favor, all right? Don't - don't call him, Liv. We'll talk tomorrow and after that you can decide what to do. But just - don't call him without me there."

And what, Malcolm wondered, the fuck did that mean? If this Stabler was a friend, why didn't Fin want Olivia to call him?

"Ok," Olivia said in a small voice. That was different, too; this Olivia did as she was told. The old Olivia would've spit in his teeth and called Stabler right then, Malcolm was sure.

"All right. Get some sleep. I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow," she said, and then Fin disconnected the call, and the phone screen went dark.

"How about that?" Malcolm said with a forced joviality he did not feel. "Your friend's coming to see you."

If he's a friend, Malcolm thought. If we can trust him. Those text messages, talking about their Christmas plans; Olivia's texts made it seem like she was wary of this man, reticent, unwilling to commit to seeing him again. What if he wasn't the kind, devoted friend he seemed to be?

I have to keep her safe, Malcolm thought. I'm all she has.

"I'm so glad," Olivia said dreamily. "He - Malcolm he knows me, from before. There's so many things he can tell me, I'm sure of it."

"It'll be good for us to speak to him," Malcolm allowed.

"Us?" she repeated.

"I'm going to stay with you, if that's ok. It's just…we don't know him, Olivia. It looks like he's your friend, but we don't know how you two knew each other or how you left things when you and Ed moved. I'd like to be here, just in case. I'll look out for you."

"Do you think I should be afraid?"

"Of course not," Malcolm said, only just managing to stop himself calling her sweetheart. The old Olivia wouldn't have liked that. "I just think we should be careful, that's all."

"Ok," Olivia said.

"Now. It's time for dinner. Who's hungry?"