He looks down at her hand and instinctively squeezes back, a reassuring tightening of fingers and knuckles. It's such an automatic thing, this; they gravitate towards each other like a pair of satellites caught in orbit. When they're scared, they reach for each other, offer each other comfort, and always had.

Right now, Number One is fucking terrified.

His heart is pattering in his chest with a more sickly kick than it did in the field just a couple hours ago. Robbers, he knows what to do with, but he doesn't know what the fuck to do about staring down the barrel of a lifetime alone or a lifetime outside this mansion's walls. (And even then, despite all this, that persistent voice in the back of his head asks: What am I going to tell dad when she leaves? I've failed them all. What is he going to think?)

Which is when he realises he's thinking 'when' she goes. Not 'if'. And that, more than anything else, makes his heart feel heavy, leaden, sinking down through his feet. Luther's calloused fingers twitch over hers. He thinks about it longer, stewing and considering, but he already knows that the decision's been made.

Until in the end he says, reluctantly, painfully, as if gouging out a part of himself and in all honesty, he is:

"Allison-- I'm sorry. I-- I can't."