[Someone will have to mop him off the floor eventually.

Or at least the muddy trail he's leaving, pulling himself along in the dirt. It's ungainly and unsightly, but it's all he can do right now.]

We'll keep searching. We'll keep going.

[This was... a critical blow, an unneeded one (but someone had deemed it necessary, and when he has the ability and the presence of mind he'll remember that); but there are still enough of them left to weather it. They haven't lost all of their momentum. They won't lie down and die yet.

He won't lie down and die yet. He can't. He never can.

It's easy to have a reason for fighting when it's the sum total of your existence, every breath you've taken for years and each day that goes by with you still here. Somehow. No matter how much you stumble or how much you fall down or how much you crack it drags you forward as though on strings, the hook sinking deeper and bloodier each time. At some point, he remembers, he'd had hold of the strings. Maybe.]

Yes. Sorry. [for his wavering hopes, for relying too much on her, for all sorts of things] I'll do what I can.