Title: Living Life

Summary: Ed hires on a new person to work in Security. Will Danny keep his relationship with her professional, or will the boundaries between co-worker and lover get blurred?

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Las Vegas Characters. I do own Julian 'Julie or Jules' McCarthy.

A/N: There is extreme bad language included in this story

A/N: I know that Las Vegas is not the way I'm portraying it in this story, so I'm making it up for the purpose of my writing. That, my friends, is what they call a Creative License. Please review my stories! I work really hard on getting the chapters out to everyone in a timely fashion, and I'm sick of working hard for people who don't care enough to let me know.

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"Julie, come on! Open the door!"

Danny says, ringing the doorbell repeatedly. He got to my house about 15 minutes later, after speeding the entire way from the casino. The talk with Ed really helped clear things up for Danny. He knew that he had done wrong ten years ago, leaving me alone to raise our child, even though he thought he was doing what was right for Emma. She needed a father figure in her life, and he preferred it to be her actual father.

"I'm not leaving until I talk to you!"

The door open, throwing Danny a little off balance. A few seconds later, it opens fully, revealing a ten year old girl, with long brown hair and striking blue eyes, wearing a pair of pajama pants and a white tank top.

"Can I help you?"

For a moment, Danny is frozen, a little shocked by what is standing in front of him. Seeing Emma in pictures is one thing, but seeing her in real life, live and in person, is completely different.

"Are you okay, mister?"

"Uh, yeah, uh, is your mom home?"

"Who's asking?"

"Danny McCoy."

She walks away from the door a few steps and yells out to me.

"Mom, there's some crazy guy here for you named Danny McCoy."

"Let him in, Emma!"

I yell from the kitchen, where I'm trying to finish the photo albums. In the process of moving here, I discovered just how many pictures I have and how unorganized I am. Emma stands aside, letting Danny enter, then leads him into the kitchen.

"Can I help you mom?"

"I'll let you help when we get to your pictures okay, sweetie? Now go into the living room and finish your art project."

She scrambles off into the living room to finish her painting for school, leaving Danny and I alone in the kitchen.

"I'm sorry, Jules."

"For what, Danny? You have nothing to be sorry for."

"Yeah, I do. You were seventeen and had a whole life ahead of you, and that was all taken away by me leaving you alone to raise Emma by yourself."

"That decision was made by the both of us, not just you. It's partially my fault for getting pregnant at all that young. I was sixteen when she was conceived, and I guess at the time, I didn't realize what it was like to have to care for another person. I think everything turned out okay though. Emma's a great kid."

"Yeah. You were right, you know. When she was born and you were still in the hospital, you said that Emma had your eyes, but her face was just like mine, and you were right. Ed showed me the picture he had of when she turned five and it hit me that I had missed so many milestones in Emma's life and I didn't want to miss anything else."

I sit there thinking for a minute. Danny wanted to be in his daughter's life, which is something I always wanted for Emma. She had never met her father, and I was hoping that one day I could introduce them, and it seems like that perfect opportunity had just fallen into my lap.

"Does she even know that I'm her father?"

"Yeah. I've showed her tapes of us together, showed Emma pictures, and told her all about you. She wants to know how come you've never come to visit."

"I just want to see her sometimes. The weekends or whatever is good for me."

"Danny, stop. I'm not going to keep you from seeing Emma whenever you want to. She's not just my daughter, she is yours, too, and that gives you the right to be in her life full-time. Start with some pictures."

I toss him a pile of old photographs of Emma at random ages.

"You'll need to catch up a little bit before you're thrown head first into the world of parenthood. This one is of her when she turned two. Emma couldn't and still can't stand making a mess, so your dad was taking pieces of cake and feeding it to her."

While we had decided back then that Danny would go live his life, his family still wanted to be involved in Emma's life and I wasn't going to stop them.

"She adored your dad, Danny, and he adored her. I'm really sorry we couldn't make it in for the funeral."

"Nah, it's alright. The only ones there were my sister and I. Dad would've wanted it to just be us."

We must've spent the next few hours just looking through pictures and recalling different memories.

"I want to come back, Julie; not just for Emma, but for you too. What Ed said made me think. He said that I love Emma, and from the way, I had acted around you, I still loved you, and he was right. I know that's crazy, you don't want to believe it. Believe me, that's exactly what I thought at the time too, but being back here with you tonight, with Emma, I don't know. I just I guess. I feel like a real family should."

I put down the pictures that I had been looking at.

"I don't know, Danny. What if it ends up being like last time?"

"It won't be like last time, Jules. We're both more mature now; we have more life experience and know what it takes to make it in this screwed up world."

"I don't know if I can. I know where you're coming from, and you're right, I do still care about you, maybe even more than I did back then, but I can't put Emma through that, I can't put myself through that. I don't want to feel that pain all over again,"
Before I can finish the statement, Danny's lips are pressed against mine, and I'm sinking deeper and deeper into the moment. For a second, I feel like I'm sixteen again, before any of this happened, and Danny and I were still just two young, carefree teenagers, without a worry in the world.

"Mom, I'm going to put my art project upstairs so it can dry."

Emma's voice drifts in from the living room successfully shaking me from my reverie. I pull away from Danny and clear my throat.

"Okay, sweetie. Go ahead and go to bed, alright? I'll be up in a minute."

"Alright, mom."

I start picking up the few pictures that hadn't been put away, and lay them back in the box.

"You can't deny what just happened there, Jules."

"I can, and I will. Danny, we're co-workers now, and its best that our relationship stays strictly professional. Like I said earlier, you can see Emma whenever you want, but you and I, we're never going to go anywhere. Look, Danny, you can stay in the guest room or whatever if you want, but I have to work in the morning, and I need some sleep."
I say, walking out of the room, leaving Danny sitting at the table. As I leave, Danny whispers to himself,

"I'm not giving up on this; not yet."