Casey looked into Olivia's eyes, the knife still in her hand. "I have loved you since the day we met, and I thought you loved me too, even though we were apart for four years. I gave you my soul and my body, and still it's not good enough for you. On the bright side, I finally figured out who you have been talking to so secretively. It's Michelle isn't it? Your ex girlfriend?"

"Casey, please-"

"Just answer me! Please! I have a right to know who else occupies my wife's heart."

Olivia sighed deeply. "Yes, it's Michelle," she admitted. "But you have no reason to be jealous, Casey, because you know I love you more than anything, and that you will always be my number one. We haven't done anything, I promise you. Please believe me, baby. We have only talked."

"Does she know about me?"

"Yes, and she thinks the reason I have been so stressed lately is because of you, and she told me that you are toxic to my health."

Casey's emerald eyes narrowed in anger, while inside her heart felt as if it had just experienced the shattering blow of a hammer. "How can she possibly know what has been stressing you out so much?" she asked. "I don't even know, and I'm your wife...or, at least, I thought I was."

"Work has been getting to me, okay?" Olivia replied. "Working sixty hours a week is draining me, Casey, slowly but surely. And then I come home to your insecurities and your paranoid jealousy and I wonder if I should even say anything to you, because I never know the right thing to say. It seemed like a stroke of luck when Michelle came back, and I thought maybe it would help to vent to an outside party."

Casey sighed. "Okay first of all, she's not an outside party, she's your ex girlfriend, and I...I understand that you have had a lot going on and that you feel overworked and under the weather, but it really hurts that you didn't talk to me first about these things. Nobody cares more about you than I do, don't you get that? I wish we could talk the way we used to." She sighed and set the knife on the counter. "I'm tired of fighting, Olivia. This has gone on for weeks, and I just want it to end. I want you to know that whenever you feel overwrought and stressed, you will always have your wife to talk to." She glanced at the knife and immediately felt ridiculous for overreacting so badly. She had been thinking with her broken heart and not her brain, which almost led to her not existing at all anymore. "We need to talk." That was the understatement of the century, Casey thought.

"Yes we do," Olivia answered, sidestepping her and picking up the knife, before walking over to the silverware drawer and setting the knife in its section. She turned around and looked at Casey. "We have already shared how we feel," she began. "Or at least, we've shared how we feel about the fighting. But something else is bugging you, I can see it in your eyes. Casey, what is it that is hurting you so much?"

Casey shrugged, debating how to go about answering the question honestly, while at the same time avoiding making the older woman angry all over again. "It's the thing with Michelle," she answered truthfully, looking into her wife's eyes. "So many things hurt about it. You never told me she was back, and that hurts because it makes me feel as if you wanted to hide it from me, and then I have to wonder why that would be. Then there's the fact that you canceled our date last week, and I came home from work, only to find you on the phone with her, and the fact that our special time had to be lost so you could spend time with her, well, that hurt more than you could ever know. And, finally, there's the fact that I've heard you calling her pet names such as baby, darling, and sweetie, and unless I have faulty hearing, I heard you the other night tell you love her." Casey sighed, sitting on the counter top. "But you know what hurts more than any of that?" she asked. "Whenever I try to tell you about these feelings, you accuse me of spying and eavesdropping. I don't, okay? I can be standing here in the kitchen and you in our bedroom two floors up and I still hear you, Olivia. If I were spying I would have my ear pressed against the bedroom door."

"Babe, I understand where you are coming from, but those nicknames are only said in a joking way. They don't carry any meaning behind them, the way they do when I use them on you." Olivia walked over to Casey and took the younger woman's hands in hers, gazing into her emerald eyes. "I know you are not spying, and I'm sorry for ever accusing you of that. I'm sorry for everything I have said over the course of the last several weeks that hurt you, because by hurting you, I hurt myself. I know this thing with Michelle is bothering you, but know one thing: I loved her at one time, but I have no feelings left for her now. All of my love is for you, baby."

Casey nodded, her gaze falling to the floor. "Please just stop flirting with her, whether it's in a joking way or not. I can't take it. I can't. I'm not being jealous...well, I suppose I sort of am, but not in a possessive way okay? I just want to be the only woman in my wife's heart. I don't care if you are friends with her, but this constant talking and giving up our dates for that really hurts, and all I ask of you is that you stop doing that."

Olivia smiled softly. "I promise." She brushed a stray red curl out of Casey's emerald eyes. "I love you," she murmured, pressing her lips to the young attorney's in a kiss filled with pure love, lust, and desire.

"I love you," Casey whispered as their lips met. She wrapped her arms around her wife's neck and felt Olivia's arms around her waist as their kiss deepened, lasting for several moments before they were interrupted.

"Ewwwww...Gross!"

Casey looked up, smiling when she saw her daughters standing in the kitchen entrance, covering their eyes. She knew it was Serena who had made the comment. "Girls, why don't you go watch cartoons in the living room? Dinner will be ready soon."

"Okay, Mommy," Serena said as she and Stephanie turned and ran into the living room. Moments later Casey and Olivia heard the sound of cartoonish laughter.

Casey shook her head, smiling. "Those two are so active sometimes," she said, looking into her wife's eyes. "They take after you."

"They have my personality and their mother's intelligence." As Casey blushed deeply at the compliment, Olivia added "Now order dinner, baby. I'm starving."