"Stabler," Ayanna called as he stepped into the open area that passed for a bullpen at OCCB. Jet was upstairs at her computer, but no sign of Reyes or the ADA, and that meant he wasn't late. But if he wasn't late, then why the hell did his Sergeant look so pissed?

"What's up, Sarge?" he called back warily as he approached.

"Who the hell is Rosie Townsend and why is she threatening to have you arrested for kidnapping?" Ayanna asked darkly, crossing her arms over her chest and pinning him with her best you're in big trouble glare.

Shit.

"I can explain -"

"Did you or did you not take an unstable woman and her four year old son away from their home against doctor's orders?"

Up on the platform Jet leaned to the side, watching him with a morbid curiosity around the edge of her monitor.

When Bell put it like that, it sounded bad, even Elliot had to admit that. But he'd done nothing wrong, and he wasn't going to let the meddling of a retired kindergarten teacher in Mayberry interfere with Olivia's progress. She'd had two massive breakthroughs just this morning; what else might she remember, given a day or two in more familiar surroundings? Her continued improvement, her safety, her goddamn happiness was his main priority.

"She's not unstable," he said stubbornly while Bell's mouth dropped open in horror as the realization dawned that Rosie Townsend wasn't an EDP making up fanciful stories but that Elliot had, in fact, done exactly what he'd been accused of. "And I don't know anything about doctor's orders. No one told me she couldn't come. I just brought her home, and I'll take her back when she's ready."

"Why do you do this to me?" Ayanna asked, pinching the bridge of her nose in apparent frustration.

It's gonna be a long day, he thought.

"Rosie, I'm fine," Olivia insisted. "I'm safe, I'm happy, there's absolutely nothing -"

"He took you away!" Rosie's voice echoed shrilly through the phone. "You were only just getting your bearings, and now -"

"I've remembered how to type," Olivia told her. "I remember how to tell time. I can read a clock."

There was an old-fashioned clock on one of the shelves in Elliot's living room; Olivia could see it easily from where she sat on his sofa, and she could read it. She knew what the hands meant, the minute and the hour, knew how to tell the time from their placement. So many things she was learning, so many things she was beginning to wonder if she'd ever really forgotten at all.

"We'll be here a few days," she continued. "And then I'm coming home. Elliot has to go back to work next week, and I do want to call that therapist."

She was telling the truth; it had taken her two weeks to get this far with only her friends to help her; and she was certain she could reclaim her memories much faster with a professional on her side. For a day or so she'd been considering giving up, abandoning the woman she once had been and forging a new path, but now she was resolved to unearth as many memories as she could. To turn her back on her past would not grant her a brighter future; there was only loneliness ahead without the people and the memories that made her who she was.

"I don't like this," Rosie told her, yet again. "It's not just you, Noah's there, too. He's so young, and you're both…you could get hurt."

But Olivia was sick and tired of people warning her not to do things because she might get hurt. Staying at home, helpless and trapped, that hurt, too.

"I'm fine," she said again. "I'll call you tomorrow."

And then she hung up the phone.

Silence filled the space previously occupied by Rosie's anxious exhortations, and into that silence Olivia breathed a deep and sincere sigh of relief. Elliot's home was beautiful, in an eclectic, masculine way, so different from her own, but some things remained the same. There was a record player in the corner and a shelf of records to go with it, and as her gaze landed there she wondered if they owned the same records. If they liked the same music, if the love of that music was something they'd once shared in common. It would be nice, she thought, to hear a little music now, a different song to sing than the one Malcolm had played for her, the song Elliot said she hated. But Noah was still sleeping, and she was loath to wake him; she wanted to enjoy her solitude, just a little while longer.

The sun was shining brightly outside, calling her name, and so Olivia rose slowly to her feet. She retrieved her coffee mug from the side table, and tiptoed to the bedroom door, looked in on Noah. He was sleeping deeply; he'd been sucking his thumb but as he drifted off it had fallen out of his mouth, was now resting on the pillow close to his little lip. He looked sweet like this, she thought; he always looked sweet. The way she loved him was indescribable; deep and profound, a love that had survived the loss of everything else. As she looked at him a bubble seemed to burst in the back of her mind, a memory suddenly exposing itself, playing like a film. A memory of her, standing in a hallway in some official-looking building somewhere, a memory of a woman passing a wriggling baby into her arms. A memory of that baby's pudgy little hands outstretched, reaching for her, and in that memory she recalled her own wild, overwhelming feeling of joy, of hope, and beneath that, just a little, of fear. It wasn't the first time she'd held her son she felt sure of that - Fin had told her that she'd discovered Noah first in a hotel, and that wasn't what she was remembering now - but maybe it was the first time she'd held him knowing for a certainty that he was hers, that she would not ever have to let him go.

It was a beautiful thing to have, love. It was a terrible thing to lose.

Very quietly she slipped away from Noah, left him to dreams and ventured out onto the patio. The patio was a wide chunk of concrete pavement, big enough for a bench and a round metal table with four matching metal chairs. All around the edges of the pavement the dirt was overgrown with half-dead bushes and spindly little trees, high brown grasses and a few struggling green weeds. It was as if the earth was rising up, reclaiming what had been taken from it; as she sat down at the table she had the thought that if left unchecked all that wild, reckless growth would come for the concrete, too, crack it, break it, burst up through the seams until all that remained was the grim beauty of stubborn living things. She liked the idea of it; she felt as if the block on her memory was just like that chunk of pavement, and she prayed that her memories would take root, take hold, and break it down.

At the table she stretched, tilted her face up into the sun. It was cool today; they were rapidly approaching the end of October and the chill of autumn had truly set in, but Olivia didn't mind. It was nice just to breathe fresh air, to listen to the sounds of the city bustling on the other side of Elliot's tall fence. But she had not come out here solely to enjoy the bliss of a quiet morning; she was on a mission.

Determined, then, she pulled out her phone, and drew up the list of her contacts.

Barba and Carisi and Amaro and Amanda, those were the people in the photograph Fin had shown her. Her squad, her friends, her family. She began to look through her contacts for their names and found herself almost immediately stumped; there was no contact for Amanda. There was an Amaro, though.

Amaro had been her partner, once; would he answer her call as Elliot had done? She desperately hoped he would.

Today was Saturday, and she thought surely that meant her friends weren't working, as Elliot was, but they could be doing all manner of things, and she didn't want to be rude or pushy, didn't want to give them an excuse to turn her away before she'd even begun. Malcolm said a text was less intrusive, that it allowed the recipient to respond when they were able, rather than interrupting them in the middle of a task with a phone call. With that in mind, then, she fired off a text to Amaro.

Hey, she wrote. It's Olivia. I'm in the city. Can we talk?

With that message sent, she moved on to the B's, and sent the same text to Barba, and then to Carisi. Three lifelines, cast out into the darkness, Three hopes for contact, for a chance to learn more about herself. Who else could she reach out to? There was Lucy - she was in the photograph, too, but Olivia decided not to text the poor girl. Lucy had been Noah's nanny, and as much as Olivia was sure she'd liked Lucy the girl had worked for her, not with her, and so might not know much of anything at all about the truth of Olivia's life. But what about Amanda? Why wasn't she in the contact list? Or was she saved under a last name, like Barba, like Carisi, like Ed, whose name was still listed as Tucker?

Think, she told herself, reading each name on the list. Amanda, Amanda, Amanda -

Rollins. She saw the name, and froze. That's it, she thought. Amanda was Rollins.

I should've come to the city a week ago, she thought, typing out a text to Rollins. Then again, maybe it wasn't the city that was bringing her back to herself; maybe it was just time. The doctors said her memories might return with time, as her brain healed, as her body settled. Maybe it was the days, more than anything her friends had done, that were bringing all these memories back to life.

Four was enough, she thought. Amaro, Barba, Carisi, Rollins; surely one of them would answer her, and when they did she'd be one step closer to home, to knowing exactly who she was.

Or so she'd thought.

Amaro answered first.

Sorry, Liv, Gil has a soccer game this morning, I can't talk til later. I'll call you, ok?

That wasn't a great start.

Ok, she texted back, and then returned her attention to her coffee.

Barba was next; Sorry, Liv, he wrote, I'm in Albany this weekend. I'm swamped. I'll call tomorrow?

She told him ok, too, pouting just a little. Had Fin not told Barba and Amaro what happened to her? Didn't they know how desperate she was, how badly she needed them? Maybe they didn't; Fin had been called into work, and maybe he was too busy just now to alert everyone to her shocking circumstances. That must be it, she told herself; it was easier to believe they didn't know. She didn't want to imagine that they just didn't care.

The phone buzzed a third time; Carisi, now.

Sorry, Liv, he wrote. I know you're in a bad way, but I'm trying to find a judge for a warrant. Can we talk tonight?

At this rate she was on track to spend her entire evening on the phone. That might not be so bad.

Of course, she told him. Whenever you have time.

Four texts, and three responses. Maybe Rollins would have time for her. Maybe Amanda would come to her, sit with her, keep her company and regale her with tales of her old exploits.

Or maybe not; as she sat and sipped her coffee the minutes slipped away, and when noon came and she went to retrieve Noah for his lunch, she'd still not received an answer from Rollins.

We're just getting started, she told herself. I've got nothing but time. It'll happen. I'll meet them all.

She would, wouldn't she? Today was only her first day in the city; her attempts to reach her friends had been fruitless so far, but she had nothing else to do, no pressing engagements, no deadline for speaking to them. She had a whole week to meet her friends, if Elliot let her stay that long.

It's going to be ok, she told herself. Her hope was fading fast, however; in the silence she felt as if she could hear the slamming of a door, closing her in, entombing her in endless isolation.

Liv was too damn quiet.

From the second he got home, she'd been quiet. When he suggested a restaurant for dinner she'd agreed with a vacant sort of nod, as if she were hardly listening to him. When he drove her through the city she'd stared at the window, and when he asked her about her day all she'd said was it was nice. The bright lights of Times Square did not move her to speak; though she wore a look of wild-eyed wonder to match the one on Noah's face she had no words to spare for Elliot.

The spot he'd chosen was a cutesy, kitschy, touristy kinda diner, a place where a family with a kid could eat comfortably without worrying if the little ones made too much noise - or too much mess - with the kind of good old fashioned Americana food he figured anybody'd like. He and Liv ordered salads and sandwiches, and dino nuggets and french fries for Noah. So much for getting the kid a vegetable with dinner; we'll do better tomorrow, he thought as he looked across the table, at Noah's happy smile and the ketchup smeared across his chin, at Liv and her dark, sad eyes, her fork listlessly poking at her salad.

That, of course, raised the question of what exactly the fuck they were gonna do tomorrow.

"I was thinking," he said into the silence of their table. Or, relative silence; their party was quiet but the diner was not, bustling with families, with conversation, with music piped in just a hair too loud. "We need to get groceries tomorrow, but I don't want to waste our time at the store. We can put in an order for delivery, and then we can go out somewhere. Maybe take Noah to Central Park."

Elliot hadn't been anywhere near the park in six months, and Liv didn't remember it. If the skies stayed clear, it might be a nice way to spend some time. They could go to Strawberry Fields, or the Balto statue the kids had loved when they were little; those things wouldn't mean much to Liv just now, but it might be nice to take some pictures of her and Noah there, to make some new memories. They could take Noah on the carousel; hell, they could take Noah to the zoo. It might be too crowded on a Sunday, though; they might save that for Monday.

You've got time, he told himself. They had a whole week to spend together, and that was plenty of time; still, though, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was running out of it. Something had changed; Olivia had been withdrawn from the second they left the house this morning, and she only seemed to be drifting further and further from him. What if he'd made a mistake, taking her away from her little house, from the only things that were familiar to her.

"I'd like to see something special, while I'm here," she told him. "I can take Noah to the park back home."

"Central Park is special," Elliot told her. "It's much bigger than your park back home, and there's a lot more to see there. Lot more to do. They got a carousel, and a zoo, and there's bound to be some street performers. Musicians, people making balloon animals. Sometimes there's people selling pretzels."

And Elliot loved pretzels. The big soft ones, with lots of salt and mustard. Liv liked them, too. Or, she used to.

"Oh," she said. "That'll be all right, then."

"Listen, Liv, is everything ok?"

He couldn't help it; maybe their dinner would go more smoothly if he just pretended there wasn't anything unusual about Olivia's behavior tonight, but she was clearly upset about something, and he needed to know what it was. The whole point of this trip was to help her, to help her find the pieces of her past she'd lost, help her reconnect with old friends, help her find her way, but how could he help her when he didn't have the first idea what she really needed from him?

"Everything's fine."

Of course. Everything was always fine, with Liv, even when it wasn't.

"I know it's been a big day -"

"I sat in the car for two hours, and I sat in your apartment all day, and now I'm sitting here," she pointed out waspishly. "I'm fine."

At least she's as good tempered as ever, he thought darkly.

"Whatver you say, Liv," he murmured, and then he turned his attention back to his sandwich. Clearly she was not fine, but if she didn't want to talk he wasn't gonna force her. Not now, at least, not in public, not in front of her boy. When they got home, when she put Noah down for bedtime, when he and Olivia were truly alone, well. That would be a different story.