As Bill Shorten stood in the glare of the media in the minutes before the leadership showdown, he did not have to explain that the decision to withdraw his support for Julia Gillard had been an agonising one.
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His face, pale and drawn, told the story.
For weeks, Shorten was the prize the Rudd backers had coveted.
The symbolism of splintering Gillard's Victorian power base and forcing one of the central players in the 2010 spill to kneel before them would be key to making the third and final operation to install Rudd a success.
Shorten's numbers were secondary. In the event, the powerbroker only brought a single extra vote with him - that of Queensland MP Shayne Neumann. It did not drastically alter the 57-45 result on Wednesday.
Factional colleagues from Victoria, such as Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus and Michael Danby, stuck with Gillard.
Talk that Shorten's support for Rudd had been locked in in advance were being strenuously denied by those close to the Workplace Relations Minister.
But it emerged on Thursday that he did play a crucial role in bolstering the Rudd camp by encouraging colleagues to make up their own minds and by the way in which he wrestled with his own choice.
Fairfax Media has learnt that, over the past fortnight, Shorten sought the counsel of everyone from Paul Keating to his local parish priest in Melbourne.
He spoke to community leaders, union bosses and his long-time mentor, former ACTU boss Bill Kelty, to gauge their support for a return to Rudd and whether Shorten's well-known leadership ambitions could survive performing one of the most extreme U-turns in Australian political history.
The contents of those conversations is not known but Shorten's eventual decision is.
Australian Workers Union bosses Bill Ludwig and Paul Howes are furious with Shorten, who has conceded that his actions have lost him friends.
Labor insiders said on Thursday that Shorten's actions in the lead-up were more important to the result than his dramatic actions on Wednesday evening.
''Language is important and Bill had spent a fortnight asking other MPs what they thought needed to be done and saying things like 'it's reasonable for people to take different positions','' a Labor source said.
''The message was clear that the defences that had been built up around Gillard in the past had been lowered and there would be no repercussions for moving to Rudd.''
With a ballot already called, Shorten gathered his staff in his parliamentary office on Wednesday less than an hour before the 7pm vote to inform them he had visited the prime minister and informed her of his decision.
By the time he fronted the press, his vote and that of Neumann's, who walked with him down the corridor, were academic.
Shorten said on Wednesday: "No [I'm not a traitor], what's guided my actions in the last 24 hours is a view that Australian people want to see in our democracy Labor be as competitive as possible.
"I don't believe it's in the nation's interests to see a landslide outcome to the conservatives."
NSW Labor general secretary Sam Dastyari, who helped co-ordinate the Rudd forces, said Shorten came across ''very late in the piece''. ''Bill has spoken to a lot of people over the past fortnight but he didn't reach a final decision until late,'' he said.
Equally as important as Shorten's support was the near abandonment of Gillard by NSW MPs.
Previously, Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare, Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury and Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr had protested their loyalty to Gillard. On Wednesday they voted for Rudd.
While Bradbury - who faced near certain defeat in his marginal seat of Lindsay under Gillard - was a late defector, Clare had been prepared to switch for some time, perhaps since March.
ALP polling in his Bankstown-based seat of Blaxland - once held by Keating - showed that not even a 12 per cent margin was going to be enough to save him from an embarrassing defeat and a promising career cut short.
A source said Clare brought across at least two other ''nervous Nellies''. Echoing the comments of other defectors, Clare said he voted for Rudd because "it gives the Labor Party the best opportunity to be competitive at the next election".
Despite his public protestations at being named in the Rudd camp in March, Carr had been convinced for some time that Labor was on the way to annihilation under Gillard.
''I think suddenly the next election has become very contestable,'' he said. ''I would expect our support will bounce back pretty quickly to where it was in 2010 and it's up to us to go forward from that.
"[It's] whether you want economic management entrusted to the leader that saved us from the GFC or someone who was discovered with a $70 billion black hole."
The Right faction, of which Carr is a veteran member, agreed that Labor would be almost wrecked if it went to the election under Gillard.
The Right - whose members include Chris Bowen, Joel Fitzgibbon, Bradbury, Ed Husic, Michelle Rowland and John Murphy, and is led from Sussex Street by Dastyari - remains a formidable force, despite its reputation for ruthlessness.
Only three members of the Right voted with Gillard: Environment Minister Tony Burke, parliamentary secretary Sharon Bird, and government whip Chris Hayes.
The operation was co-ordinated from the Parliament House office of new Treasurer Bowen. Anthony Albanese, Fitzgibbon, Victorian Alan Griffin and Bowen hit the phones once a spill petition was circulated for signatures.
Gillard tried desperately to shore up her numbers, personally phoning Rowland, who holds NSW's most marginal seat, Greenway.
Rowland told her leader that "on this occasion I would not be voting for her". "It certainly wasn't an easy decision to make," she said.
Stories that a petition never existed and was a ploy to flush out the Gillard camp to bring on a vote, are false. Fairfax has spoken to Labor MPs who signed on for a spill.
By 1pm on Wednesday, the Rudd camp was confident it had the numbers - perhaps 50 and rising.
In a corridor Griffin maintained: "Nobody knows the numbers."
Simon Crean, the Labor elder who instigated the aborted challenge in March, was holding meetings in his office.
By 6pm, they had a comfortable majority of 55, even without Shorten. It was all over for Gillard.
