Long Slow Slide #2: Like Blood, Like Honey

Olivia

I should try to get you to eat some of this organic food when I get back…it's not half bad. The apple that I had for a quick lunch (I honestly don't know what these people's hang up with eating is…seriously, I'm starving) was sweeter, crunchier…it tasted like earth, but not quite.

I can't call you, write to you. Star forbade me from contacting anyone because Persephone James doesn't have many close friends.

Okay, I can live with that. I mean, we're in tune, right? At the academy, they even suggest partner to partner telepathy. It's dime store, but it certainly does make me think that I really am communicating with you.

But we're close anyway, right?

On the job, we're close, aren't we?

Nope.

We're not close, actually.

If we were, I wouldn't have come to Oregon. Wait, yes I would have. Scratch that.

We're close, but we're not. Does that make sense?

When I first got partnered with you, there was something between us that's missing now.

I think we let the job become life and…now I'm stuck here in this alternate Eden with people that I don't know who know me as Persephone.

I wish that I could just stuff a freakin' huge triple meat hamburger down Andy Dell's throat and hop the first plane back to New York. You'd probably grin if I sad that to you out loud.

I'm on a bus, on the way to somewhere, I'm not really paying attention.

Nighttime thinking about you has spilled into day time, and my chest hurts. It hurts, El.

It would probably turn you on to know that your shirt is now the only thing I wear to bed; that I hug the pillow close to me, substituting you for the pillow and…

He's looking at me.

Andy's looking at me, and I'm trying very hard to suppress any images or thoughts of you.

It's damn near impossible.

I just want to cut and run, El. I want to just leave and come back to you and the guys and back to my life. What I wouldn't give to wrap my arms around you and hopefully absorb some of your strength.

This is…it's like a deep well at the edge of a cliff, Stabler.

My heart is festering with anger, sadness, resentment, passion, lust. The nights are getting longer and longer, and my love is growing stronger and stronger and I can't stop it anymore.

Maybe it's all this damn earth grown food. Perhaps it's the extremely orange carrots I had two days ago with dinner that's driving this. Without the presence of artificial coloring and added sugars, there's nothing left but the food itself and it's bare essentials. With all the toxins purged from the body, it leaves room for all of those primal feelings.

Fruits aren't much different from humans you know.

You hate when I use symbolism. It's my mother talking.

You peel away the skin and you have the frame work, the juice, the seed.

Humans are the same: you peel away the skin, and you have the muscles and bones, then you have the blood, and finally the heart.

The blood and heart are important to humans just like the juice and the seed are important to fruit.

Life.

You're life, El.

You're life and anger and sex and rage and this…level of perfection that I pray that God tailor made for me.

'Cause I know that I couldn't bear to love you this hard and not have you.

Elliot

Beck does not belong on this unit.

She has no kind of compassion, she's a little too forward with victims, and she's just…impulsive.

Like me.

I've done a lot of things out of impulse, so I guess I can't fault her, but I think I'm a lot calmer now.

This life is short, and I can't spend it being angry and trying to put away every perp and save every victim.

You're going to resent me Liv, but I talked to Rebecca a few times…well, I can just not tell you-no, I want to be honest with you because you're worth more to me and you deserve better from me.

I was angry when you left again, I'll admit.

So I went and talked to her, got it all off my chest. And she said something that really got to me.

I was talking about my marriage, how it ended…and she mentioned something about how maybe, the divorce wasn't an end…well and end but that's not what I'm getting at, and I know you love that symbolism crap.

Rebecca suggested that maybe it wasn't an end, but a beginning…the start of something even better than anything I'd ever experienced before.

How do these shrinks do it?

What she said has been stuck in my head for a long time.

I want life, Olivia. I want to live and do this job, separate myself from the job and see my kids…

I need you here so I can start.

At night, I barely sleep because I'm wondering what you're doing, who you're talking to…who's ass you're kicking…then I think about your smile and how you would look in one of my shirts…I want to see your face when you finally come home and fall into your bed.

I know how much you love that bedroom. We spent hours decorating it.

You should have been an interior designer. Maybe then, if I met you in that capacity, things would be a hell of a lot easier.

But I like you better as a detective.

But I hope that you're realizing like I am that at some point, we've got to let this go, Liv. The job. You're so much more than just a cop, Olivia. I hope that you look in the mirror every night and see just how beautiful you are.

God, I want to be more. I want to be a better father, a better person.

SVU has just taken the last bit of myself and I don't know who I am anymore.

I don't make sense without you Liv.

But that's unfair. I can't use you just to make sense of myself. Hell, you're probably confused about yourself too.

I can't stop thinking about you, you know.

That's a hard thing to do.

I can't get you out of my thoughts, my dreams.

You can make me do whatever you wished…Huang asked me that once: "How does she make you do anything?"

The 'she' was you. You have this…I don't even know.

I'm drawn to you, and it's powerful. When Gitano stabbed you, I wanted to help you but you didn't want me to. You made me go after the kids…which was a bust. I realize now that it's not a bad thing that I chose you over the boy…

Funny how we realize things when we're apart, huh?

I chose you, Olivia. I chose you over my obligation to serve and protect.

I love you and it's not a bad thing.