When the US Supreme Court rocked America by toppling the constitutional right to an abortion, it seemed like the conservative super-majority on the bench had never been more powerful or more united.
But a few clues in the judgement suggest the man who is ostensibly the highest-ranking officer of the court has never been more isolated.
Chief Justice John Roberts may have sided with his conservative colleagues on a decision that allowed Mississippi to impose a near ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
But when they went further and toppled Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that gave Americans the right to end a pregnancy, Justice Roberts broke ranks.
He didn't join the three progressive justices in their blistering dissenting opinion.
Instead, he filed an opinion in which he spoke only for himself.
He said his colleagues were giving a "serious jolt to the legal system" and called for "judicial restraint".
In the end, one of the most powerful men in America was ignored.
"His position has been weakened considerably," said Sonia Suter, a George Washington University law professor.
"He has lost control of the court."
The lucky young chief
John Roberts was never meant to be Chief Justice in the first place.
In 2005, he was nominated to be an associate justice of the court by then President George W Bush.
He beat out another young judge for the nomination, Samuel Alito.
Aides to President Bush recalled that he was won over by John Roberts's confidence and good humour, while the shy Judge Alito couldn't hide his nervous jitters.
Before the confirmation process even began, the sitting Chief Justice, William Rehnquist, died suddenly at his home just weeks before his 81st birthday.
Judge Roberts, then a spritely 50-year-old appeals court judge, was re-nominated — this time, for the top job.
"He's had almost perfect timing throughout his life," biographer Joan Biskupic wrote in her book, The Chief.
President Bush celebrated Chief Justice Roberts for his "reverence for the constitution and laws of our country; his impartiality and devotion to justice, his modesty and great personal decency".
A devout Catholic whose wife, Jane, has provided pro bono legal advice to the anti-abortion group Feminists for Life, John Roberts was grilled by the senate on his views.
"My faith and my religious beliefs do not play a role in judging," he said.
Confirmed by 78 out of 100 US senators, the new young chief had a job for life.
John Roberts has long said that, once a justice puts on the black robes, their ideology falls away and they are impartial interpreters of the law.
As Chief Justice, John Roberts soon established himself as a stalwart of conservative jurisprudence on issues such as voting rights, affirmative action, campaign finance and abortion.
However, he liked to move slowly in his judgements, preferring to take an incremental approach that didn't change America dramatically overnight.
For much of his 17 years as Chief Justice, John Roberts has presided over an increasingly powerful court.
As Congress became bitterly divided and deadlocked, his court wielded more and more power over American life.
Always by John Roberts's side was his former rival.
With Chief Justice Roberts in the top job, President Bush had given the vacant associate position to Samuel Alito.
For years, their voting records were virtually indistinguishable.
Chief Justice Roberts would often assign his junior colleague the task of writing majority opinions, especially for tricky cases.
But a shock presidential election and an even more shocking death would up-end America — and John Roberts's stewardship of the court.
The court's new era
The shape of the court has changed significantly in the past few years, moving from a roughly evenly split bench to one that now skews significantly conservative.
In his four years as president, Donald Trump appointed three conservative justices to the Supreme Court.
Neil Gorsuch was confirmed as Mr Trump's pick to replace Antonin Scalia, who died suddenly in 2016.
In 2018, when Anthony Kennedy retired from the bench, Mr Trump picked Brett Kavanaugh, a man confirmed by the Senate with the narrowest minority in almost 150 years.
The appointments of both men were gripped by controversy.
Democrats claimed that Justice Scalia's seat was "stolen" after Republicans refused to consider then President Obama's nominee until after the 2020 election.
And Justice Kavanaugh's confirmation process exploded in scandal when a childhood acquaintance, Christine Blasey Ford, accused him of attempted sexual assault — something he vigorously denied.
However, the biggest bombshell was yet to come.
When liberal stalwart Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in 2020, it changed everything, says Jeffrey Rosen, president and chief executive of the National Constitution Center.
"The passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the elevation of [Justice] Amy Coney Barrett changed the dynamics of the Supreme Court," Mr Rosen said.
"Under Justice Ginsburg, it was a 5-4 court with Chief Justice Roberts as the swing vote, determined to preserve its legitimacy by avoiding polarising decisions.
"Now there's a strong five-vote conservative majority to do whatever it likes. Chief Justice Roberts has found his role diminished."
The shock leak from a secretive institution
The screaming crowds outside clinics and courthouses might give an outsider the sense that Americans are deeply polarised on the issue of abortion.
However, polling paints a far more nuanced picture.
Support for abortion access varies from state to state. On a national level, however, about 85 per cent of American adults say the procedure should be available in at least some situations.
Sizeable majorities support abortion care for mothers whose lives are at risk and for those who are victims of rape or incest.
Americans are less sure about terminating a pregnancy when the baby potentially faces severe disabilities or health issues.
However, for a small section of America, overturning abortion rights was everything.
Co-opted by the religious right, the war against Roe v Wade was declared almost as soon as it became the law of the land in 1973.
That war was finally won in 2022.
However, the first sign of victory was glimpsed two months before the ruling finally was made.
Justice Alito's draft opinion on the future of abortion access was leaked to the media from the US Supreme Court.
For a building cloaked in secrecy, tradition and honour, it was an "earthquake" for the court.
The source of the leak has never been found, although many legal experts in the US say the intent was to lock conservative justices into the commitment to overturn Roe.
With five justices already indicating they would support the move, it made it nearly impossible for Chief Justice Roberts to try to tempt one to his side.
"He tried desperately," Professor Suter said.
"You can be sure that, between the time that the original draft was issued and June 24, he was working hard to try to change minds. But he was unable to do that."
Chief Justice John Roberts was by no means trying to save Roe v Wade.
However, as a lifelong incrementalist, he pleaded with his colleagues to consider a compromise that would not gut Roe but limit its scope.
"The law at issue allows abortions up through 15 weeks, providing an adequate opportunity to exercise the right Roe protects," he wrote.
Perhaps, he suggested, it was not the court's place to decide at what point in a pregnancy that the fetus becomes "viable" and can live outside the womb.
"Recognise that the viability line must be discarded, as the majority rightly does, and leave for another day whether to reject any right to an abortion at all," he pleaded.
In a sign that he's lost even his closest ally on the court, Justice Alito dismissed him.
"We cannot embrace a narrow ground of decision, simply because it is narrow. It must also be right," Justice Alito wrote.
The court's ruling has been "a nuclear explosion in American politics", according to Mr Rosen, and "the entire judicial landscape has changed".
"Chief Justice Roberts had made it his entire project to preserve the legitimacy of the court to avoid polarising decisions and to try to persuade his colleagues to converge around narrow, unanimous decisions," he said.
"Now, he doesn't have the votes to do that. And his poignant separate opinion in the abortion case shows how diminished his power has been."
The post-Roe America
The five people with the most say over American rights all describe themselves as constitutional originalists.
To them, the core of American values, laws and traditions have been suspended in amber since 1787.
To them, abortion is not a right because, when the founding fathers wrote the constitution 234 years ago, they could not conceive of such a procedure.
Chief Justice John Roberts, neither an originalist nor a progressive, stands alone with no power to sway the court's rulings.
It's a strange moment for a man who cares so deeply about the court's reputation, according to Mr Rosen.
"In Roberts's view, there is now a danger that citizens will perceive the justices as partisan, even though they don't perceive themselves as partisan. And that was why he was trying to avoid decisions like this," he said.
"And, if opinion polls are any guide, it seems that citizens are perceiving these decisions in just the way that Roberts feared."
Confidence in the court has sunk to a historic low, according to a Gallup poll.
Just 25 per cent of US adults say they have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in the court that can shape American life for a generation.
For Mike Davis, a conservative commentator and former law clerk to Justice Gorsuch, opinion polls are irrelevant.
"These five justices on the Supreme Court are unelected. They're lifetime appointed and unaccountable politically by design," he said.
With the court heading into a new era so, too, is the United States of America.
In several states, abortion is now banned in almost all circumstances. Others are considering their next move over the coming weeks or months.
For some Americans, the last week was a monumental spiritual victory.
For others, it was a moment of deep despair.
After a rush on morning-after contraceptive pills, America's largest pharmacy chains are limiting purchases to three boxes per customer.
And, in Texas, clinics say they're treating girls as young as nine who have fallen pregnant after being raped by their fathers.
With no other options, some of these children will be forced to give birth to their own siblings.
