"Ain't never too early for a drink where I'm from." Dan screws the cap back on the bottle, but he puts it away next to his ankle, not back in the drawer. If they continue this round of conversation, he'll end up drinking until a few hours from now he's napping it off in the Pole bedroom all day.

He doesn't answer for a moment. There's so much to say about Ellie, so much he tries to just not think about each day because then he feels so overwhelmed with how much he doesn't have in his life anymore, how much she took away from it.

"She was eleven. She came on cases with me. I was stupid to let her but she threatened to get in worse trouble if I left her alone and I didn't have the spine to call her bluff."

And Dan will never forgive himself for that. He'll never forgive himself for any of the times he left her alone because he was drunk or in jail or hooking up with a stranger, either, even with the clarity of knowing the two of them were barely scraping by, that he was the only person capable of parenting her at all.

"She liked darkness and creepy things. She loved animals more than people. She was smart and witty and curious about the world. She wasn't, you know, mine by blood. But she called me Dad when she was trying to be sweet or get me to do things for her." And he took that title with honor.