Hello All! I am very sorry for such a long delay. I have started school, it's my senior year, I play a varsity as well. College apps as well! Anyways here is a new chapter and thanks for waiting! Don't forget to review!

She stepped out of the steaming shower and allowed the cold air to hit her. She had suddenly decided to go to Ireland, to find a reason as to why she was even going . Yesterday, she had told Elliot she had wanted to go to Ireland after Muire had explained everything, and he had been surprised, wondering why she would go to the country where her husband was killed, where his wife had came from. She grabbed a towel and wrapped herself in it. The comb from the toiletry kit she had brought ran through her hair and made it past her shoulders. Afterwards, she dried her face and put on some eye makeup, basic enough to make her feel better than she really looked.

Turning around and seeing her outfit, a purple ribbed long sleeve fitted top and a pair of dark jeans. She hadn't brought another coat but only had to use hers, which was damp, but she liked it, since it was ankle length and the tan color complimented her well. She walked out the bathroom and into her room. Elliot was on the floor, doing pushups, despite his attire being his coat and dress shirt.

"I'm ready." Olivia said

Elliot finished his last push up and got up. He was sweaty but he approached the bathroom.

"I'll be out in two minutes"

Olivia sat on the bed and looked at her feet. She was blistered and bleeding nearly from having to walk for blocks yesterday, but today she felt better. Elliot was out nearly three minutes later, having taken a quick shower and getting dressed.

"I have the flight for noon, we should leave now if we want to make it through security."

It was nine thirty. London Heathrow was insane, even more insane than JFK. She knew he was right.

She was trying to read the map while remembering to drive on the left, a challenge that taxed all of her concentration , so that it was time before she realized the irony of being on Ireland's freeway, which was leading her towards Ashbourne, exactly where she didn't want to go. The flight had been uneventful, the car rental straightforward. She felt a physical urgency to get to her destination. By landing in Belfast, she had missed the city of Galway completely, as Dublin was the only flight out for the day.

"You sure you want to drive? I can drive."

Olivia was exhausted, and she honestly didn't know where she was going, let alone trying to get used to the fact that she had to drive on the left side of the road.

She had gotten off the freeway and had pulled over in a parking lot, where Elliot had switched to the drivers side. He'd driven in Ireland before, due to his family trips and visits.

"Alright, we're heading towards Dublin."

The unadorned white cottages and pastureland were marred only by wired fences, telephone poles, and occasionally a satellite dish. The hill seemed to change their color and even their shape, depending on how the sun shifted through the fair weather clouds. The land looked ancient , trespassed upon, and the hill had a worn and mossy work, as though they had been trampled by feet. On the ridge of hills closest to the road, she could see the scattered white dots of hundreds of sheep, the plowed and furrowed bits of patchwork, the low green hedgerows that border the crops like lines drawn by a child.

This would not be what the blood struggle had been about, as she thought as Elliot drove. It was something else she'd never fathom, never understand. Though James, in arrogance or love, had presumed to do so, had involved himself in Northern Ireland's complex conflict, even it is was lingering, thus causing Olivia and Julia to be peripheral, unwitting, participants.

She knew few facts about the troubles, only what she'd absorbed, like everyone else, from headlines and from televisions when events occurred that were catastrophic enough to make news in the United States. She'd read about the violence of the 70's, the hunger strikes, the cease fire of 94, and the breakdown of the cease fire, but she knew little about the why of it all. She'd heard of knee capping, of car bombings, and of men in ski masks entering civilian homes but she had no sense of the patriotism driving these terrorist activities.

What baffled her now, though, was not the reason for such conflict, but James' participation in it, a reality she could barely absorb. Had he believed in the cause, or had he been drawn by its seeming authenticity. She could see the appeal of that, the instant meaning given to a life. The falling in love itself, the romantic idealism, the belonging to a righteous organization, and event he religion would have been part of the whole. It would have been a total giving over of oneself to a person or an ideal, and in this case the two would have been inextricably linked. Just as the cause would have been part of the love affair, the love affair would have been part of the cause, so that you couldn't, later, have one without the other. Nor could you leave one without the other. Seen in this light, she thought, the question wasn't so much why James had taken up with Muire O'Brien and married her in a Catholic Church, but rather why he hadn't left Julia and Olivia.

Because she had loved Julia too much, she answered herself at once.

She wondered if James and Muire had actually been legally married. Did a wedding in church automatically confer legal status? She didn't know how it worked, or how Muire and James had specifically worked it. And she would never know. There was so much now that would never know.

When she had landed in Ireland, she showed her passport at the checkpoint and passed into the Republic of Ireland. The more Elliot drove towards Dublin, the less greenery, more buildings, more city like areas.

They entered the city and she noticed the Georgian buildings, the architecture, and massive gothic like churches. They pulled up to their hotel, more of a bed and breakfast. Elliot had booked it and it was a few blocks from downtown. The front door of the brick building was led by a dozen stairs. Elliot had parked the car and taken both of their luggage. He opened the door and allowed her to step in first, both of them walking into a living room with a man watching the EURO cup, a cup of tea in his hand.

"Hello, you checkin in?" The man said in a heavy Irish accent

Elliot put down the luggage

"Yes, Stabler"

The man guided the both of them through a hallway to a small office, checking them in and giving them both room keys. The large house reminded Olivia of her brownstone, but scattered with more rooms. Their room was on the third floor. As soon as they got off the elevator, they walked to the end of the hallway. Olivia opened the door and found a double bed room with a window looking out at the backyard.

Elliot placed her suitcase on one of the beds, and his on the other.

"You want some tea?" Elliot said, pointing to the tea pot in their room

Olivia had noticed that in most of the hotels that she had stayed in at London was that each room had their own tea kettle, a self heating one, so tea was a instant thing.

"Sure" she said

She took off her coat and flung it over the desk chair. Elliot set up the kettle and went into the bathroom. He came out a minute later and poured her a cup of tea.

"Olivia, why are we here?" he asked, handing her the tea cup

She looked down at her feet, putting her tea cup on the bedside table next to her.

"I need to be able to let go of him, to see where he went down, to let go."

"He isn't coming back Liv-"

"I know."

"Olivia, you don't deserve to be sad."

She looks up at him, seeing him pull the chair from the desk and facing her.

"It hurts" she says quietly

"Excuse me?"

"Having poured your best self into someone and still being their second choice, and maybe not even that? It hurts. Especially when you know their heart's gonna get broken, and they'll try to make you think you still have a chance again."

Elliot looks at her eyes, seeing them glazed over.

"God, loving someone who doesn't love you back hurts."

"You're going to be okay. It'll work itself out."

"I wish I could believe that" she sighs

He gets up and sits next to her, putting his hand on top of her leg.

"Olivia, sure you feel like your body's on fire and slowly disintegrating to ashes, but the fames are all in your head Olivia. And you can put them out yourself, you don't have to watch yourself fade away. You're going to be okay, maybe not today or tomorrow but it will take a long time, but fuck, is it worth it? Right? Don't you ever let me hear you say again that he left because he couldn't love you enough, there is no such thing as "too broken", not to the ones who are worth it anyway. He's an idiot for having done this all to you, but you know what? It's a natural, excruciating part of life, some people walk into your life with no intention to leave but one day you'll wake up reaching out to kiss him good morning, but he's no where to be seen. But thats all on him, you can't rip yourself to shreds searching for an answer that you never got. You're not a fucking puzzle with a missing piece, you do not need him to complete you."

He takes her hand and squeezes it, his head leaning against hers as she leans on his shoulder.

"Thank you."

Elliot gets up and grabs her coat from the desk chair.

"Lets go, drinks on me" he says, giving Olivia her coat

"Good, I could use a few."

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