The jungle planet had been a welcoming site to the two generals who had finally been able to fly out to check on the Falcon. The trees were lush and green and gave a feeling of home to them.

The grey and blue Sheathipede-class shuttle slowly lowered to the jungle floor that was densely overgrown since they hadn't been here to keep the invading wildlife from taking over. The shuttle had been the only ship that had been large enough to hold more than one person that the Queen had been willing to let them use after the two generals had made sure that she stayed behind to keep her safe. It didn't have any weaponry as far as the two of them could tell, which was fine. They weren't expecting to take this shuttle to the Finalizer and both of them had been sure that Lando would favor the Millennium Falcon over his Lady Luck.

They, in this case meaning Poe, had also begged Zorii to come with them, but she had made up some excuse about something or other -Finn wasn't paying much attention as Poe and Zorii had been trading kisses like their lives depended on it- and had left with the promise of returning if they needed help.

Poe and Finn stepped from the shuttle and into the dense, suffocating undergrowth, fighting through the air that hung heavy, moist and still. The trees stood tall like ancient temples and a shimmering green light came through all of the large leaves.

The two of them wandered towards the base and as they came to a clearing that was beginning to be overgrown around the edges, they could see the Falcon waiting for them patiently with Lady Luck sitting beside it, shining bright in the noon sun.

"It's a bit muggy, isn't it?" a voice said somewhere behind the two of them.

Both jumped, turning. Poe swore and had his blaster pulled on instinct before he took in who stood behind them, had been following them through the trees without so much as a sound. The young girl stood there innocently, hands clasped behind her back as she craned her neck back to see the tops of the old trees.

"Your Majesty?" Finn asked, dumbfounded. Poe slowly holstered his blaster back against his thigh and gave a disapproving look. Finn's eyes darted to Poe and failed to see the expression on his face. "You let her come?"

"Not this time," he answered sternly. "We strictly agreed against it,"

"You were against it, General," she said calmly, eyes finally leaving her surroundings and going to the two men who still stood tensely. "I however, never agreed to anything."

Poe opened his mouth to argue, but stopped as the conversation replayed in his head. He had the final word, hadn't even let her object. He had said his peace and walked away and she had ignored it. He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

Finn chewed on his tongue for a moment before looking from his friend and back to the queen. "Aren't you worried about your people?"

"As long as you two aren't there, there won't be much contention," she replied, stepping over a large tree root and again looked around, hands still clasped innocently behind her back as she slotted herself between the two of them. "They don't seem to like the two of you much, but I can't begin to understand why shooting a blaster off in the middle of an official meeting would offend anyone." Her tone was dripping with sarcasm and it made Poe grumble under his breath.

"And what about your advisers, Your Majesty?" Finn continued on as Poe seemed to be lost in a low voiced conversation with himself.

With a sigh, her hands dropped to her side. "Please, let's drop the titles out here shall we? Please just call me Cordella." Her eyes were now locked somewhere behind him and Finn turned to follow her gaze. "I've left my double in charge. They wouldn't let me run off after what happened with the X-Wing," she answered absently as she walked past Finn and towards the two ships in the clearing.

"What double?" Finn again, ignoring Poe's mumbled monologue beside him.

"I have a double for when I travel in case someone wants to come after me. She had been away for a while. Her grandfather had passed away. She returned shortly before you had planned to depart."

"That's why you had asked us to stay longer," Finn accused as he put two and two together.

Cordella shrugged in a non-confirmation short of way and walked on. Finn grabbed Poe's arm and dragged him along, pulling the man from the argument he was having with himself.

"She has to go back," Poe finally said to someone other than himself.

"You couldn't make her even if you wanted to," Finn said.

He could make out the door of Lady Luck begin to lower and three figures at the mouth of the entrance. One was the notable form of Lando that caught Cordella so off guard she stopped, letting Finn and Poe catch up to her.

"Baron Landonis?" she asked. "You didn't mention that you were meeting him."

"You didn't ask," Poe offered, continuing to head towards the three figures.

The second was Chewie, who towered over the other two. The other one was a slightly smaller frame with large hair that made Finn smile. It had been a long while since he had seen Jannah.


Ben paced across the floor of his new-ish room that still had that broken mirror adorning the wall. The floor was black beneath his feet and reminded him of the Nether. But there were no whispers of the past, or of the future. Just his own thoughts to keep him company.

Why had he been so stupid? What made him think that he could outrun the future, or at least alter it enough that he would be helping Rey? He had disobeyed the Queen's direct orders and had taken things into his own hands and now where were they? Rey was still just as hurt as she had been, and he had drug more people down with him, just as he always had.

Wayzac still had a hold on Rey, despite his best efforts to make it so that she wouldn't. And if she did get a hold of Rey, then Ben had been very certain that Queen Cordella's plan didn't work the way that she thought it would. It meant that something had gone wrong during the attack or on the way to the attack. But that didn't matter now. The past was the past and there was no changing it, but then... Was there much chance to change the future?

If Rey had still ended up tortured by Wayzac, what could he possibly do to make this better? Had his story already been written? Had his fate already been sealed away?

He shook his head. He didn't have time to let the guilt swirl around him. He had to make sure that everything was ready for tonight and he had to keep an eye on Wazac and make sure that she didn't lay another hand on Rey. She had also taken all of Rey's things. Where was Rey's lightsaber? They couldn't just leave it behind. A lightsaber was as much a part of a Jedi as their lungs were. It was connected to them in a way that nothing else was. A force like the Dyad.

There was a loud commotion that pulled him from his thoughts and sent his eyes to his door. His eyes searched the face of the door as a loud thud radiated from something that had hit it. He hesitated for a moment, hand on his lightsaber, ready to go if needed.

He placed his hand to the interface pad and it let the door slide open for a slumped stormtrooper body to tumble to the floor, effectively blocking the door from fully closing again. Ben's eyes searched what seemed to be a fairly empty hall from where he stood and took a step back at the bright color of a blaster bolt shooting down the hall. There was another and a voice yelling. One he recognized. One that he hadn't heard in what felt like years.

"Uncle Lando?" he asked, taking the risk of looking out down the long grey hall that was inlaid with pipes taking various items from one end of the ship to the other. There was a good handful of troops collapsed outside of his door and down the right end of the hall. Up the left were running footsteps and Ben couldn't believe his eyes.

There was Finn, Poe, Lando, a stormtrooper he seemed to recall as TZ-1719, part of a large fraction that had defected shortly after Finn had, the large and furry Wookie that had been such a good friend to his father and lastly a young girl that had familiar features that he couldn't exactly place.

He stepped fully out into the hall and the group came to a halt at the sight of him. Three of them stood tensely in his presence and the two generals were more at ease, but still looked hesitant. The girl he couldn't exactly place took a step towards him.

"Ben, I'm glad to see you in one piece. We were worried when you missed your last meeting."

His eyes widened as the voice matched a name to her face. "Your Majesty," he said with a small bow of his head. "What the kerfing hell are you doing here? All of you."

"What does it look like?" Poe asked curtly, making Ben frown.

They didn't have time to fight. Someone would be coming to check out the noises soon. And he wasn't exactly sure how they had all snuck on board, but they were most likely seen with each turn they had made. Wayzac had been eerily thorough with having cameras installed on almost every inch of this ship since he had arrived and he knew it was to keep an eye on him.

Ben knew she was onto him and it was only going to be a matter of time before she outed him, but he had hoped it would last a little longer than this. She would use this against him now. There would be no other reason as to why they would know so specifically where the two prisoners were.

"Follow me," Ben instructed, leading the way up the hall, through the mess of bodies.

There were hushed concerns behind him that Ben did his best to ignore as he checked the next hallway for clearance before leading the group up it.

"Are we trusting him?" That was Lando. Ben could pull that man's voice out of any crowd. He had grown up with it around. A low growl came from Chewie, something akin to agreement with Lando. Chewie's was another voice he had grown up with, hearing it far more than he did Lando's. He had never really been able to speak Wookie, but being around Chewie enough had let Ben know what the Wookie was trying to say.

"Yes," Finn answered.

"You do realize who we're following, don't you?" Ben glanced behind him to see the dark skinned stormtrooper woman with large curly hair staring daggers at Finn. Ben did his best not to put any thought on the fact that the woman had her weapon aimed at him. It was some sort of modified bowcaster, the bolt set at his back that looked as scrapped and put together as she did. It also looked like she was the one who had to pull back the bolt and release it instead of the machine doing it for her, which was an interesting idea than Ben would have to explore later. It made him wonder how strong she had to be to get her shots to go where she wanted them to.

"We do," Poe offered, a darkness to his tone. So, they were still on bad terms. Ben hadn't thought that they would be fixed over night, but he had hoped that whatever was wrong between them could be fixed. He really did want to try to fit in with the group. He wanted more than anything to belong to something for once in his life, and to belong to something good.

"Ben knows what he's doing," the Queen defended. At least someone other than Finn was on his side. It felt nice to finally have one more person in this expansive universe he could call an ally.

Ben came to a halt, an arm out to stop the group, all of their soft chatter dropping. Wayzac stood at the end of the long hallway, making the hall feel like it had shrunk in size. Her stance was tall and unburdened, her hair back and a missable smile on her lips. Her hands were clasped behind her back as if she had been waiting for them.

"Rose is in cell block C," Ben said to the people behind him. "Finn, can you please take several of your people to go and find her? It's in the same corridor as on The Supremacy. She will know the code." Ben could see Finn nod and Chewie and Lando went with him, leaving Ben with an almost sinking feeling that he would never see his uncles again and he was sad that he didn't get more of a chance to say sorry for the rift he had cast between his parents and them.

Ben regretted that he didn't know her name as he spoke again. "TZ-1719, Rey is in the infirmary. You should know where that is."

"East or North?" she asked, her weapon now taut at Wayzac who stood patiently still for him to finish giving his orders.

"East."

She slowly relaxed her muscles and lowered her bow, taking a few steps backwards until turning away with Poe. The pilot had to snatch up Cordella's arm and pull her away and Ben could sense her want to stay and help. But this was between Wayzac and him and no one else.

It was always going to come down to this. They were two opposing forces, two strong entities that Snoke had enjoyed to place against each other after Ben had broken into a million pieces and had shut Ben Solo away behind his armor of Kylo Ren for good until a ball of sunshine had brought him back out again.

"How long have you known?" he asked as he pulled his saber from his belt and caressed the activation lever, waiting for whatever attack was coming his way.

"You're far too careless Benny, dear," she said flatly, head tipping to the side. Ben frowned in dislike. The last time anyone had called him that had been his mother when she had come home after a long day of work and would give him a single hug before starting all of the work she still had to finish and had brought home with her, leaving him alone for the rest of night like he had been all day long. "Have you ever thought of me as a foolish person?"

"Not at all," he answered, widening his stance slightly to make sure all of his weight was balanced so he could move at a moment's notice.

"And I haven't ever thought that way about you," she continued on. "Though you are a tad big headed." She cracked a smile at her own joke. "So, how long have I known?"

"Since I came back on this ship."

"Very good Benny dear."

Her movement was calculated and swift. A single blaster bolt hurdled down the hallway towards Ben who deflected it with a swipe of his crackling red blade. It ricocheted into one of the many thick pipes along the wall, filling the room with a thick haze, hiding Wayzac and her SE-14C Blaster Pistol from him in mere moments.

Through the fog was a bright flash that barreled towards Ben.


Rose gazed up at the ceiling above her bunk. The dull creme color was chipping from years of being forgotten and lack of anyone actually caring to repaint the cell. She bounced her bent leg, hands clutching a map to the escape pod against her chest. if something happened and Ben had to stay behind to keep them safe she needed to know where she was supposed to go.

Ben and her had been carefully planning this for days. At first it was just going to be her, but when they had finally found where Rey was being kept, plans had changed. Now she just had to wait for Ben to let her out and then the three of them would leave together. Though she had her suspicion that Ben would stay behind.

She supposed that he had always had a sense of duty, some form of loyalty that maybe came from his parents or the fact that he was and still is a Prince and had probably been raised as such, but it had been skewed away from its true purpose. And now that he knew what it was, he would follow it through to the end.

Rose's tongue played with her busted lip, the crack feeling odd and foreign to her. Her eye was still pretty swollen and a deep black and blue, but all in all she wasn't too badly beaten. Ben had shown up just in time again and since that second time, Wayzac hadn't been sending anymore of her goons to try to attack her.

Her eyebrows furrowed together at a set of footsteps that she recognized and she pushed herself from her back onto one of her elbows in her bed to find not only Finn, but Lando and Chewie with him as well. She scrambled to her feet and raced to the glass wall that separated them, her hands pressing into the cold firm surface.

"Finn," she called. His eyes met hers and he raced to the wall between them, looking around for some way to get her out. "What are you doing here? Where's Ben?" She had a million questions running through her head, but she knew time was short and she wouldn't get all of the answers she wanted.

"He's busy holding off Wayzac," he explained. Rose watched as both Lando and Chewie kept an eye on either side of the cell block incase stormtroopers decided to show up. "Ben said that you knew the code."

"Yeah. 57Z2," she said, concern across her face. "Is he alright?"

"He was when we left."

"Ben's a big kid," Lando said with a smile over his shoulder at her. "If he's anything like what Luke gushed about when they were training, he can hold his own." – He said proudly.

Chewie gave a nod with his own sound of agreement, but it still didn't sit right with Rose. They didn't know Wayzac on the level she did. There was something absolutely terrifying about that woman, a fire in her that was burning down forests within minutes without a second thought.

There was a beeping and the glass wall slid open to let her out. She clutched Finn in a tight hug that he returned before releasing her. "We're meeting Poe and Rey back at the hanger bay."

She gave a nod. "Let's get going then."


Rey sat up far quicker than she should have and her head spun a bit. Arms circled around her in a tight hug and she was glad to be back with familiar faces. Poe and Cordella were wearing relieved smiles and Rey hadn't been able to meet Jannah for more than a few minutes before she and Lando were racing off to locate her family. Jannah stood at the doorway to the infirmary, her makeshift weapon drawn tight.

"Poe," she whispered as he released her. "It's so good to see you."

"No more running off without telling us, alright?" he teased. She only smiled back.

"Where's Ben? Is Rose ok?"

"Finn is getting Rose, Ben is buying us time to get out."

Rey froze and looked to Cordella for an explanation. "There was some woman with red hair. She must have been someone bad because he stayed behind."

"Irwilig," Jannah said, glancing back at the reunion. "Wayzac Irwilig. She'll kick your ass like it's nothing. You don't want to mess with her." Rey jumped at a ringing that came when a bolt was released from Jannah's bow. "We need to go," she said urgently.

"Cordella, take this," Poe instructed, pulling his blaster from its holster and shoving it into her waiting hands. The thing looked massive in her tiny fingers, but she didn't hesitate to go to the door and see if Jannah needed help.

"Can you walk?" Poe asked at the sight of the bandages on her bare feet. Without waiting for an answer, he scooped her up from the thin hospital mattress. Rey groaned in pain and circled her arms around his neck as tightly as she could. "You look a lot lighter than you are," he teased and Rey smiled through her grimace.

The sound of Codella firing her blaster made Poe freeze in his tracks and not continue towards the door that Jannah and Cordella were firing out of. He shifted Rey to get a slightly better grip on her and glanced around the small room, hoping for another entree way to escape out of, but this door seemed to be their only exit. A design flaw for an infirmary if you asked him.

"Let's go," Jannah said, lowering her bow and nodding them out. Cordella went first and Poe followed behind, checking the long dark hall littered with white clad bodies before carrying Rey out with Jannah behind them. "We want to take a left up this hallway."

"They're this way," a muffled voice said somewhere down the hall.

The white armor of stormtroopers rounded the corner and Poe immediately took cover in a small alcove in the wall where the supporting beam rose from the floor and curved to the ceiling, using his body to shield Rey as best as he could while Cordella and Jannah worked on the group down the hall.

Poe felt movement and there was a loud crash. His eyes met Rey's and he could feel her breathing hard against him. He glanced around the indent he was in and saw a large pile of stormtroopers shoved up against a wall, having all been slammed there at once.

Rey still had her hand outstretched over his shoulder and Poe moved swiftly to the turn that Jannah had indicated. Rey was holding the troopers there, but he could see the struggle in her features.


The blaster clicked, finally empty and leaving Ben breathing hard from the effort it had taken to block the rapid fire, one arm curled tightly against his chest as blood soaked the sleeve of his tunic from a bolt that had hit him back in the smoke filled hall.

Ben glanced around in the small moment of calm and finally took in where they were. The staircase that he had just climbed had a path of his blood along it and now he stood, uninjured arm against the railing of the walkway that sat high above the hanger bay below them, trying to catch his breath.

Wayzac stood tall and unfazed, hair still perfectly in place and in no way out of breath. The man before her was stumbling along the walkway, but eventually did stop when the last blaster shot had rung out and zipped away from his swipe.

She had pushed him here on purpose, to this exact staircase, to this exact walkway that overlooked this exact hanger. It was remarkably empty below them save for a single ship that Ben knew far too well. The Falcon stood out against the dark floors like an Acklay in the middle of downtown Coruscant. It was so out of place while waiting patiently for its occupants to return to it.

He didn't like how little activity there was on the floor far beneath them and as he focused closer on what was below, he didn't see anything or anyone else. No usual patrol, no wanderers or stranglers who were taking the hanger as a shortcut to the other side of the ship, no other ships flying in or out or parked by the Falcon whatsoever.

He inhaled deeply and looked back at the woman that was slowly inching closer. She had planned this. Ben was sure of it, though what it was, he didn't know. But there was a reason she had placed them here. There was a reason the floor was stark bare.

In a swift movement that caught Ben off guard, Wayzac pulled the blaster behind her head and threw it. Ben jumped up and slashed at the blaster, easily splitting the weapon in half. The two halves clanked as they made contact with the thin walkway they were on before spilling over the sides and crashing down to the floor below.

Ben doubled over, air wrenched from his lungs at a boot that connected with his chest. He coughed, watering eyes stuck on Wayzac's boots. Hands snatched up two fistfuls of his hair, hair that his mother had begged him to keep short and now he almost wished he had.

He was pulled upright and face to face with Wayzac. Her smirk was infuriating. The one that said she was better than him. She was always better than him. Would always be better than him. And he was so tired of her being better.

With one smooth movement of his saber, Wayzac screamed, a sound he had never heard her make before. She stumbled away from him, hands clutching at her face.

The scream continued in the same high pitched note, but it wasn't from her. Something else cried through the air and creaked dangerously. The metal floor beneath his feet was a bright gleaming red from how hot it had gotten with the blade of his saber. Ben took a few more steps away from Wayzac, who was still more occupied with her face than with him.

There was another loud and echoing crack and Ben could see the side of the walkway that Wayzac stood on tilt to one side and then to the other, now completely free from the side that Ben stood on. Ben couldn't see Wayzac's face, but her hands gripped the railing to the side of her as she tried to get her balance as the platform buckled.

She turned to look at him, eyes a flame, but that wasn't what he was focused on. From the middle of her left cheek began a deep, crimson gash. It twisted down, narrowly missing her nose and crossing right across her normally devastatingly beautiful lips to end at the bottom of her chin and jawline.

With a determined air around her, she broke into a sprint forward and jumped as the floor beneath her gave away to join her blaster on the ground far below. The crash would have been deafening had Ben been able to pay attention.

Wayzac's body collided with Ben's, sending them both tumbling. Ben moaned as his shot arm was bent at an odd angle under Wayzac's weight, the pain bringing new tears to his eyes.

Wayzac pushed the searing pain out of her mind, willing her face to numb just enough for her to think. Her eyes flickered up at two ringing clanks. Her heart beat madly in her chest. If she could get the upper hand here, Ben had no chance. She would be unstoppable with that type of power in her hands and she needed it. Ben was stronger than she remembered. There was something different in the way he fought now. It wasn't angry and passionate. It was thought out and carefully executed. This was her win.

She pushed herself off of Ben's chest and scrambled across the still intact walkway to go after the lightsaber that was bouncing away. She dove forward, skidding across the walkway, one hand grabbing up a supporting beam of the railing to catch her, the other snatching the lightsaber from its descent to the hanger below.

Wayzac pulled herself to her feet, breathing hard and turned to face Ben, but before she could activate the lightsaber, her body froze in place. She blinked several times and watched as the man who was on his knees before her held her in place with a single outstretched hand. His other one was still cradled against his chest, the blood making it seem like the sleeve of his shirt was far darker than the black fabric was possible of being.

His eyes were dark as he glanced up at her through the mess of hair that was in his face, but he didn't scare her. He never had. He was so readable, always had been. And she had seen that look before. He was about to give her hell, but it would be chaos, easy to dodge and deal with if she could only get her arms to move.


"If we hit the lift at the end of this hall, we can reach the hanger," Jannah explained to the group that had finally been able to meet back up. Lando and Chewie held back the slosh of oncoming stormtroopers and their fire, Rey far too spent to try to help any longer. Finn now clutched Rey tightly in his arms, Poe taking the blaster from Cordella so that she could fall back towards the middle of their small group to be safer.

"Ben," Rose muttered from somewhere beside Poe, skidding to a stop. Poe followed her gaze and looked out of a small doorway to their side that he had all but ignored earlier. A thin walkway with a handrail jutted out into what looked like a bottomless cavern from where he stood and at the end of it was that red haired woman that had put Poe on edge and Ben on his knees, doubled over in pain.

Before Poe could snatch up Rose's arm, she broke into a run. "Keep going," he said to the others, receiving shocked looks. "That's an order!" The rest of the group gave their own small nods and started off again, leaving Rey watching intently from Finn's grasp.

Poe raced out onto the walkway that protested under the new weight. His hand snatched up a rail and he couldn't stop from looking down at the floor beneath them of the Falcon and twisted metal of the other half of the walkway that had barely missed their ship.

"Ben!" Rose yelled.

Ben's eyes shot behind Wayzac, surprised at the voice. Rose was sprinting over and Poe was hanging back towards the entrance of the walkway. Ben couldn't hold back the shocked expression. He had been completely ready with the expectation that he would not be seeing anyone from the Resistance for a long while. He knew that Rey would immediately be hatching a plan to come and get him, but Wayzac would be more vigilant now.

He hadn't meant to let his guard drop. He hadn't meant to release his hold on her. He hadn't meant to get swept up in his own thoughts and forget where he was.

The moment Wayzac felt the hold on her body go slack, she ripped herself free and ignited the lightsaber the way that she had seen Kylo do multiple times. The hissing red beam shot forward and in a natural movement from years of using a stick for protection in the streets, she slashed through the air.

Pure, intense, brilliant pain. The sound that came from his throat was inhuman as his outstretched hand fell away and he pulled his wrist to his chest, his other hand trying to clasp something that was no longer there.

"Ben!"

Poe shot forward as Wayzac turned towards the two of them now that Ben was more occupied. He ran as hard and fast as he could to catch Rose and skidded to a halt as his brother's death played out in front of him once more before he had a chance to even stop it.

With a smooth thrust, the red blade pierced through Rose's torso, making her eyes go wide. Wayzac gave a small smile that tugged painfully at the deformation that now sat upon her lips. Her free hand clasped Rose's shoulder and pulled her closer to the sputtering hilt of the lightsaber and Wayzac leaned in close to the woman, lips by Rose's ear.

"You're in my way," she whispered. "It's time for you to go."

Wayzac's hand pushed at Rose's shoulder and her limp body met the railing, tumbling over and leaving the path clear for Wayzac's eyes to lock with Poe's face, who's mouth hung open, eyes where his friend had been standing only moments before.

She took several careful steps towards the pilot. She knew who he was. Poe Dameron. She had seen his face many times in multiple meetings to discuss the man who had found an army in the midst of a hopeless battle and had destroyed their entire fleet on Exegol. He had taken over for Leia Organa when the woman had died and if she could rid the world of this man, then that was one step closer to cutting down all of those who opposed her.

Poe's draw on his blaster was quick and shockingly steady from the scene he had just witnessed. She had expected him to be a bit slower, but it was no matter that concerned her. He stood his ground as she gained, Kylo's saber protecting her as it stayed between them.

Poe could faintly hear the engines of the Falcon roar to life below him, but he didn't care. He just wanted to end this woman here and now. If he could do that then he didn't have to worry about the First Order ever again. If she was just dead... He needed her dead!

With a shout, he raced forward, blaster still aimed at her head, but that mocking red blade was laughing as it swat away every bolt that he fired. He was almost to her when there was a rough tug around his waist and he was pulled over the railing of the walkway towards the hovering Falcon by Finn, who was waiting for him with the loading dock's door wide open.

Once Poe was inside, the door closed and the ship jolted into motion as it left the hangar bay. There was a heavy atmosphere around the ship and Poe could see the body of Rose, eyes still wide open and lightless, yet another person he couldn't save and the guilt slammed into him.

"We have to get Ben!" came Rey's voice from somewhere deeper in the Falcon.

"He can take care of himself," Lando insisted.

"We can't leave him!"