In response to the reviews: Ooops about slipping Stacie in there! Stacie is the character I created for my first fic...must have had a brain lapse! And NO...Danny was not following Katie. He was just working out at the same gym she happened to show up in. Pure coincidence. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Since flirty Danny was such a hit, I gave him another chapter and have a few more planned for later.

OK, the ending of this chap. may seem a little abrupt, but I did that on purpose. While I have created a back story for Katie, the thing I find most intriguing about Danny is his mystery. I wanted to preserve that but still show how well they relate to each other. Mission accomplished? Please let me know in your reviews.

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."
- Albert Camus

Chapter Eight - Getting to Know You

To anyone sitting in the diner that morning, Danny and Katie looked like a couple who had been together for years. The pair sat in a corner booth and the light, playful conversation began immediately. They were a beautiful couple...her peaches 'n cream complexion and dark red hair was a perfect contrast to his dark good looks. The laughter coming from their booth was heard often.

"Ugh." Katie remarked, scrunching up her face. "If you use the word courageous one more time, I'm going to dump my eggs in the lap of your nice, clean suit."

"You," Danny said with a grin, "take a compliment worse than any woman I've ever met."

Katie dipped her head and laughed. "I'm sorry. It's just that for awhile so many people either treated me like a hero or like I was made of glass and could shatter at any moment. I wasn't either one of those things. I was just a girl who'd gone through a life-changing experience and just wanted to forget all about it." Katie took a sip of her coffee and continued, "The last thing I want to be known as is 'The Girl Who Got Raped'. I just wanted to be left alone to heal."

His tone turned as serious as the subject they were discussing and he asked, "How did you? Heal, I mean. Because you talk about it so openly."

"I learned that there is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you. It can cripple you." She replied. "Plus, my friends and family rallied around me for the long haul. They never let me go, even when I gave them good reason to."

"What kind of reasons?" He asked, genuinely intrigued.

"I was a real bitch for awhile." She looked over at him and smiled.

"No...you?" The sarcasm was dripping from his voice, but the smile plastered to his face continued to be playful. "I can't imagine."

"Yes, I know it's hard to believe that the sweet and lovely girl you met yesterday could turn into the Wicked Witch of the West Village, but it is true." She joined him in poking fun at herself, but then said seriously. "I was sad and scared and angry and ashamed and in nine different kinds of pain. I had so many emotions inside of me that I was like a ticking time bomb. And I wasn't dealing with any of them. I shut myself away in my apartment, refused to see anybody. When I did see people, I snapped at them for stupid things. I wouldn't eat, and God help anyone who tried to make me. I didn't sleep because I had these awful nightmares. I just couldn't function." Pushing what was left of her eggs around on her plate, Katie said, "I was the star witness in the rape trial that ate Manhattan. If we had any hope of putting him away, I had to be ready to take the stand. But I was in no shape to face a jury or a defense attorney. Nobody knew how to help. But one thing was for sure, my friends and family weren't just going to sit around and do nothing. So my mom made some calls and found the best therapist in the city. She made me the appointment and told me that if I didn't go she would send my brothers out after me and have them drag me to the next one." Katie grinned. "You don't mess with my mother."

"Isn't therapy supposed to be a voluntary thing?" Danny asked.

"Not in my family." Her tone was sarcastic, but her love for her family shone in her eyes. "I remember the moment they told me. My mother sat on the edge of my bed and told me that I was going to go see this therapist and I had no choice. They weren't going to lose me to this. They saved my life that day."

"They love you very much." Danny said, meaning it. "How long were you in therapy?"

"I still am. In fact, my therapist inspired me to start Avalon. Then I stole her away from private practice to come work for us. I have lunch with her almost every day." Katie stole a bite of Danny's omelet off his plate and then offered him a bite of hers before continuing. "She is a rape survivor herself and knew exactly what I needed to do to heal. She put me through Hell. But she had to. People are afraid of what they might find if they try to analyze themselves too much, and I was no different. But she told me that you have to crawl into the wound to discover what your fears are and once the bleeding starts, the healing can begin."

"Sounds intense."

"You have no idea. She took me back through that night so many times, until I could get through it without getting lost in the pain."

"And she came up with the idea for Avalon?" Danny smiled his thanks at the waitress who poured them both some more coffee, and the girl blushed as if she were waiting on a rock star. Katie suppressed her laughter, which caused Danny to playfully raise his eyebrow at her. "What?" he asked when the waitress had walked away, "Did you really think you were the only woman taken in by the charm that is Danny Taylor?" Katie groaned and they both laughed. "So, you were saying?"

"Hmm? Oh right, Avalon." Danny had a disarming way of hanging on to her every word and seeming genuinely interested in what she was saying. "She told me that she couldn't change what had happened to her, but she could try to help other women who went through the same thing. That's why she went into therapy. It helped her to heal to know that she was doing something for other women out there. Well I wasn't about to go back and get a degree in psychology, so I started Avalon instead." Katie took a sip of her coffee. "I have completely dominated this conversation, haven't I?"

"Yes," he said simply and they both laughed. "But I have enjoyed it. Usually women are so stymied by my rugged, good looks and get completely tongue-tied that I have to carry on both sides of the conversation." His eyes sparkled as he flirted. "You have completely relieved me of that burden this morning."

"Rugged good looks?" Katie returned quickly, "Excuse me while I choke on my coffee."

Danny pasted a look of mock humiliation on his face. "I sense I am being mocked. You don't find me rugged?"

Katie grinned and leaned in closer, saying quietly, "Let me repeat for you what I said earlier. I grew up in a firehouse. In Brooklyn. Those are the men I grew up idolizing...large, muscled, kick-your-ass-whenever-I-feel-like-it men. Trust me, I know rugged when I see it."

"And you're not seeing it right now?" Danny asked, pretending to be hurt. In a last ditch effort to impress her, he said, "I carry a gun."

"There it is!" she laughed. "The clincher!"

"Ha Ha! I knew it. I should have my own calendar." Danny said, claiming victory over the boys of the FDNY. "New York's Bravest." He muttered and then said, "You've dated a lot of firemen, haven't you?"

Swallowing another bite of her omelet, she shook her head. "You would think so, wouldn't you? But alas, the very thing that is so fabulous about being a daughter of the FDNY is also what sucks about it." Katie grinned at Danny. "I was completely off limits. My father and my brothers made that frustratingly clear to all the guys they knew. And no one was going to go against my dad's wishes and mess with Tommy Mac's little girl. It sucked."

Danny laughed. "I haven't known you very long, but somehow I think you managed to find your way around that little problem."

"A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do." Katie said, batting her eyelids playfully. "But, I have to admit that I am developing a new appreciation for the charming, intellectual type."

"Why, Ms. McNamara, are you flirting with me?" Danny asked, enjoying this turn the conversation was taking.

"You're real quick on the uptake, aren't you?" She answered. "So what about you? Do you stick to a 'type' of woman?"

"My type seems to be the kind of woman who thinks the fact that I am an F.B.I. agent is sexy, until the first time I have to cancel a date with her because I'm working late on a case." Danny smiled a wry smile. "Then, it's not so sexy anymore."

"Ah, a workaholic."

"I like to think of it as dedication to my life's passion." He countered. "Something I'm sure you would know nothing about."

"Touche." She said. "Tell me about it."

"About what?" Danny asked mindlessly, concentrating on his final bites of omelet.

"Your life's passions. Finding missing persons. As we've already established, I've taken over this whole conversation by talking about me and I hardly know anything about you."

"I beg to differ. You know that I am not rugged and that I put ketchup on my eggs." Danny smirked. "Those are two very crucial parts to who I am."

"Nice try." Katie countered. "While to some women that may sound like the basis for a beautiful friendship, I'm a very demanding and complicated woman. I need to know more. So now it's your turn...spill it."

"What do you want to know? My life is an open book." Danny teased, a mischievous sparkle in his eyes.