Dinner was all about strategy; Elliot and Olivia and Rosie spent their meal discussing the next steps they planned to take, together. First, get through the weekend. It was agreed that Olivia didn't need a nightly babysitter, not with Rosie only two doors down. Especially not after Elliot taught her how to call 911. It was agreed that Olivia would check in with Rosie every morning, and that when the next week began Rosie and Olivia would continue to drop Noah off and pick him up from school together. It was agreed that come Monday Rosie would help Olivia contact the occupational therapist herself, and that once the appointment was made Rosie would drive her there.

It was all agreed.

In agreement, then, the trio moved into the living room to enjoy a glass of wine together, and as they talked Elliot felt Rosie's eyes heavy on his shoulders, could sense her curiosity, her mistrust. Not that he could blame her; after the debacle with Malcolm, he wasn't feeling very trusting just now, either. Noah began to yawn, and Olivia took him deeper into the house for bath and bedtime, and then the real fun began.

"So," Rosie murmured. "Elliot."

"Rosie," he answered levelly.

"What you said to Malcolm before, about how you thought he wanted to…sleep with Olivia. What made you say that?"

Damn. It was hard to face her steely gaze; she was still every inch the schoolteacher, and he felt a bit like a child just now. How must this look to her, he wondered, the strange man in Olivia's house, the strange man who intended to spend the night in Olivia's home, with Olivia, without supervision of any sort, just a few sort hours after it was revealed that another man Olivia trusted had been manipulating her for his own purposes?

"I thought it might be true," he said.

"That Malcolm wanted to…."

"I don't know how much you know," Elliot told her carefully, "and I'm not sure it's my place to say. But you heard part of it already. Malcolm kissed her, and he kept trying to isolate her. She's…she doesn't remember anything, and for a certain type of man that's appealing."

Rosie was looking at him strangely; Elliot sighed, and rubbed his hand over his bald head.

"Liv's not the only one who worked sex crimes," he told her. "I did it, too, for fifteen years, and I've seen the worst of the worst of what people can do to each other. Yeah, there's guys that would take advantage in a situation like this. Guys that might enjoy it. And I was worried Malcolm might be one of those guys."

"But you're not?"

If I was, would I tell you? He wondered. How good was Rosie at reading people, really? After all, she'd trusted Malcolm alone with Olivia, and they'd seen for themselves how misplaced that trust had been.

"Rosie, I was married for more than thirty years. I got five kids. I was never unfaithful to my wife, and I go to mass every Sunday unless I have to work. No. I want to help Olivia and that's…that's not what Malcolm wanted."

Rosie hummed and swallowed down the last of her wine, apparently satisfied with what he'd told her.

"I keep thinking about what he said. About how he just wanted her to be happy. You know he lost his wife, not too long ago?"

No, Elliot hadn't known that, but it sure seemed to explain some things.

"I was close to her. We were friends. Did everything together. And she used to say that she couldn't let Malcolm see her unhappy. Even when she was sick, when she knew she was dying, she put on a face for him. She was always smiling when he was watching, and as soon as he turned away I could see the pain on her face. I should've…I should've known better, I think."

"Nobody knows what goes on in other people's heads," Elliot told her. "Or in their marriages. He was your friend, and he didn't give you any reason to doubt him. That's not your fault."

"Maybe not. But maybe it is. And now you're asking me to leave her alone with a man I don't know, after a man I doknow hurt her. I have to tell you, that doesn't sit well with me."

That was a good thing, Elliot thought. It was good that she was mistrustful of him, good that she was thinking about Olivia's safety. He'd been worried about leaving Olivia alone tomorrow, but he felt better now, knowing that Rosie would be keeping an eye on her. And besides, Olivia had spent the whole week in the company of men. Maybe it was time she hung out with a woman instead. Maybe that would help her more than Elliot could. Even now there were some things about women that were, and would always remain, a mystery to him.

"It's just for tonight," he admitted. "I haven't told her yet, but I got called into work. I have to leave early in the morning."

"She's not going to be happy about that."

"No, she isn't," Elliot agreed grimly. "But I don't have a choice. If she could remember, she'd remember that.'

"Still, though," Rosie mused. "One night can be a long time."

"Stay, if you want," he suggested. "Hell, your husband can come, too. I'll sleep right out here on the couch."

"Bob won't move from his recliner unless the house is on fire," Rosie laughed. "No, I think I'll go home. But I'm not sure -"

"Here." Elliot fished around in his pocket, and retrieved his wallet. Inside he kept a small stack of business cards. Most of them were his, with his work number on them, but he kept two of Bell's cards, too. Just in case.

"Sergeant Ayanna Bell," Rosie read the name off the card when he handed it to her.

"That's my boss," Elliot explained. "You call her, if you want to vet me, if you think I cross a line. That woman can ruin my whole life if I fuck up."

Elliot really, really didn't want Bell to know where he'd been spending his leave, but he needed Rosie to understand, needed her to give him this one small piece of mercy, and let him stay by Olivia's side just a little while longer.

"You're serious, aren't you?" Rosie asked gently. "About helping her. I see the way you look at her."

And how, Elliot wondered, how the fuck was he looking at Olivia? What was it Rosie had seen, or thought she saw?

"She's my best friend," Elliot confessed. Still was, even after seven years of silence, because Elliot had never shared as much of himself with anyone else as he had shared with her. Because even after seven years she was still burned on his heart, ingrained his soul, still the one person he wanted to talk to when the world turned itself upside down around him, still the first person he thought of when something joyous - or calamitous - happened, still the voice of reason murmuring wisdom in the back of his mind. His partner, his better half. His everything.

"And friends look out for each other."

"And friends don't sleep together," Rosie said, lifting an eyebrow at him.

Sometimes they do, he thought.

"No," he said. "We never have, and I don't plan to now."

Not while everything was so confusing for her. Not while she was lost, so uncertain, so changeable. Not while she couldn't remember him. One day, maybe. But not yet. Not now.

"All right, then," Rosie said, and then she set her empty glass down on the side table, slapped her knees, and rose to her feet.

"I'm heading home," she told him. "You behave yourself."

"Yes, ma'am."

Mama had tried to reach him manners, and he tried to remember them, so he walked Rosie to the door, watched her walking away until she mounted the steps of her own home, and opened the door. Once she was safely inside he closed and locked Olivia's front door, and made his way back to the living room. As he walked he thought about the mess in the kitchen, the pile of dishes still to be done. Had Malcolm taught Olivia how to work the dishwasher? Elliot might need to do that before he left. What other tasks would she need explained to her before she was ready to spend a weekend alone with her boy? She had Noah's routine down, and she had enough groceries in the fridge to keep them both fed, but would she know how to wash their clothes? What to clean, and when? Where the broom was, the vacuum, which cleaning products could not be mixed together lest she accidentally create napalm in her bathtub?

As he stepped back into the living room he froze in his tracks, caught off guard by the unexpected sight of Olivia standing in the middle of the room and glaring daggers at him. It was a look he recognized well; it was the look she wore when he'd royally fucked up.

"Hey, Liv," he said carefully.

"When were you planning to tell me that you're leaving?" she demanded.

Shit.

"Olivia-"

"I am so sick and fucking tired of people hiding things from me," she hissed.

It was familiar to him, her fury. Comfortable, even. He knew what it looked like, when rage was boiling inside her, knew what it sounded like, knew - sort of - what to expect. How she'd lash out at him, manage to say just the right thing to cut him to the bone, how she'd come to after, how she'd never say sorry but she'd make an overture of some sort, a cup of coffee, a doughnut, a kind, tentative word to let him know that she didn't hate him, that she wanted to put the ugliness behind them. Olivia would never say I'm sorry, but she always apologized.

Before the apology, though, he would have to weather the hurricane of her anger, and he could see the storm building in her eyes from across the room.

"I was always gonna tell you," he said carefully.

"Like Malcolm was always gonna call the therapist?" she spat.

The comparison rankled; no, he thought, no, he was nothing like Malcolm, wasn't trying to keep Olivia ignorant and innocent and helpless forever, wasn't lying. All he'd done was wait a little too long to tell her, but really, what was too long? It wasn't like he was planning to slip out before daybreak, disappear without a word.

Again.

"I didn't want to tell you in front of Rosie. I wanted a little privacy, can you blame me for that?"

"You wanted to handle me," she said accusingly. "How is that different from Malcolm? You lied to me."

"Whoa, hey, back up," he said, marching towards her. Her anger was catching; he didn't appreciate being called a liar, when he had done no such thing. "When did I lie to you?"

"You told me you'd take me to the city on Saturday," she fired back, crossing her arms over her chest. "But you told Rosie you're leaving. You're leaving. You're not taking me with you."

"I said maybe Saturday." There had been no agreement; he'd have remembered that. In the coffee shop they'd talked about Liv going to the city, and they'd said maybe, but it wasn't like she could just pick up and go. It was pretty clear to him they'd left the whole thing up in the air, but she'd latched on to that maybe, and it threw him off balance, just a little. Was her short term memory damaged, too? Were her recollections of that conversation all garbled and confused? Or was it only hope, only that she'd wanted to believe that she could go, wanted it so bad the wanting had made the inevitability of the trip real to her?

"Oh, don't give me that," she said. "You didn't say maybe. You said how about Saturday and I said that'd be good. We agreed, Elliot."

Shit. Was she right? Was it his memory that wasn't up to snuff? Whatever he'd said, he'd had no intention of actually taking her away from this place when she was still so unmoored; maybe it wasn't her hope that had led to this confusion, but his own obstinance.

"It's not - it's not that easy." He felt as if he were walking across a too-thin sheet of ice, afraid that if he put his foot down too firmly it would give way beneath him, and leave him to drown. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her - to hurt her worse than he apparently already had done - but he couldn't give her what she wanted.

Could he?

"Isn't it?" she demanded. "It seems pretty easy to me. You just got in the car and came down here. It took you what, two hours? I can ride in a car for two hours."

"It's not getting there that's the problem," he pointed out. "Liv, you've got Noah to think about. This has been so confusing for him, do you really want to just pick him up and take him to an unfamiliar place?"

She damn sure couldn't leave the boy behind; Rosie seemed trustworthy enough, and as a former schoolteacher and mother herself she was certainly more than capable, but Elliot didn't want Olivia to be parted from her son. Really didn't want Olivia two hours away from the boy while Malcolm was stewing on his injured pride next door.

"You telling me you never travelled with your kids when they were toddlers?"

He almost said no. It wasn't like they took a lot of vacations, when the kids were small. Money was tight and there were too goddamn many of them. But he and Kathy had more than once packed all the kids in the car and gone to Jersey to see Mama. Maureen and Kathleen had slept over with Kathy's mom countless times when they were kids. It wasn't like he and Kathy had kept their children in the family home every day until they were teenagers.

"I'll be with him," she continued. "He'll be ok, as long as we're together. And we'll have you. And maybe…maybe I can meet some of my other friends, too."

"I don't know," he sighed, ran his hand over his head in agitation. "Should we - should we call your doctors first? Check with somebody, or something? It's a big deal, going to the city. It's not like this little town. You don't know your way around, you could get hurt."

"What exactly do you think I'm gonna do?" she demanded. "You think I'm gonna run off the second I get there and get lost?"

"I don't know!" he burst out. "Shit, Liv, I got no idea what you're gonna do from one second to the next. Say we pack you guys up and you come with me. Where are you gonna stay? With me?"

"Are you saying I can't stay with you?" Hurt flashed across her face, darkened her eyes, made him feel like the biggest piece of shit alive.

"Of course you can stay with me," he said before he could think better of it. "But my place isn't toddler proof. Noah could get into something, he could hurt himself -"

"You think I'm not gonna look after my son?"

"And I have to work," he glossed smoothly over her accusation. "I got a meeting tomorrow, I'll be out of the house for hours."

"So?" Christ, she was beautiful, even when she was pissed. Maybe more beautiful then, in her power, her righteous fury, her endless strength. "What's the difference? Either Noah and I are alone in this house, or we're alone in your house. You've just got the one meeting?"

"Yeah," he said slowly. He could see already when this was going.

"And you've got all of next week off?"

"If I don't get called in -"

"So Noah and I can spend a few hours alone at your house and then you can show me around the city. I can make contact with my other friends. If you have to go to work, maybe I can spend time with someone else."

"You can't drive," he said. He was trying, really he was, to make her see sense, but he could feel himself losing the battle. The thing was, she was right. Alone here or there, it made no difference. Olivia had lost her memories but she wasn't stupid. If he explained to her how dangerous it was to go off on her own, he was pretty sure she'd stay put, for her son's sake if nothing else. And he had taught her how to call 911. If there was an emergency, she could get help. Maybe.

"What if something happens and you need to leave and I can't take you?"

"You really think there's no other way I could get home? I can call Fin - "

"Fin's working - "

"Fin's not my only friend. I've got Carisi, I've got Barba, he showed me their pictures, remember? Their names are in my phone, too."

And even if Fin was working, he'd probably be able to find a minute to take a call from Liv. Rosie might even be willing to make the drive to come pick her up, if it came to that.

Shit. Was he really considering this?

The city was full of hidden dangers for a woman who did not understand how the world worked. Could she even read a map? If she did get lost, would she know how to look for the street signs, would she be able to tell anybody where she was? Would she talk to the worst kind of strangers? Would it overwhelm her, terrify her? Would she set the apartment on fire trying to make toast?

It's not like she's got dementia, he thought. She was making new memories, after all. And apparently doing a better job of that than he was. For all her recent naivety she was not a child. The idea did hold a certain appeal, taking Liv to the city, watching her in Times Square, running with Noah through Central Park, eating hot dogs off the cart and laughing like the old days. She was right, too, about her friends; it would be easier for them to meet her in the city. Maybe beneath the bright lights and the skyscrapers she'd find the missing pieces of herself. If she did, he wanted to watch it happen.

"Traveling with a toddler is a big responsibility," he said slowly. "I think you can do it," he added as her mouth opened in indignation, ready to rip him a new one. "But I want to make sure you've thought this through. You're gonna have to keep him safe, and that means you're gonna have to listen to me when I ask you not to do something, all right? I trust you, Olivia, but you gotta trust me, too."

"I do," she said quickly. "I will."

If the roles were reversed, he knew he'd be hellbent on getting home. Would be desperate to know where he came from, would do anything to reclaim his old self. Would Liv let him? If it were her standing in his shoes, weighing the potential for disaster, would she give in? Probably not, he thought, because Liv was made of sterner stuff than he was, and because he did not possess a pair of big dark puppy dog eyes that made her knees buckle.

"All right," he said finally. "All right, we'll go together."

It wasn't going to be easy, but then with Liv nothing ever was. She was always worth the effort.