[It's always there, pressed up under the dome of his skull, and he knows it's the first thing people see when they look at him. It's no secret, though the media didn't get much about him. Never cared. He wasn't one of the big heroes. But his face was out here. And these days, whenever they saw a policeman, people grabbed their kids by the hand.

At the word Lieutenant, his eyes focus.]

My friend?

[For an instant he thinks the kid means the exact wrong thing, before the rest of the sentence comes together and the rage on his face dies before it's fully formed.

Turning away from the old hurt and anger is a good thing. You can never really forget it, but you can push it into another room for a while.

He snorts.] "Cool." Yeah, that's the word he'd say, and it'd be total bullshit. Always acting like some idiot teenager, posing with those fuckin' stupid-looking glasses like he was some kinda hot shit. But then, once he dropped the act, it turned out he wasn't so bad to be around. A lot more decent than he looked. Actually somebody you could trust.

He's the one who first pointed out I was a horse. Don't know why I never noticed it before.