Don Juan looked at Hudson with his mouth set in a firm line. He did believe it, and none of Dean's sentimentality was going to dissuade him. "You came to get me after her mother died," he pointed out, meaning that Dean knew better than most people how entirely incapable he had been at the time of taking care of anyone; he hadn't even been able to take care of himself. And he hadn't made great strides in the interim, either. He wasn't drinking himself to death in the wilderness at the moment, but Dean still didn't know the half of what trouble he'd gotten himself into only a few months ago.

He didn't want someone depending on him if he wasn't sure he'd still be here tomorrow, and at the end of the day he wasn't sure of it. Even now that he was sober — it was too new and still felt too tentative for him to fully trust that it would last. But he was sure Dean didn't want to hear that, and certainly didn't want to hear about his brush with death back in December.

He finished his glass. "It doesn't matter what I think, anyway. It'll come down to who has the more persuasive solicitor. I just think they've got a lot more evidence in their favor than we do."

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