Ellie looks pretty horrified at the very thought of any of that. She’s not thrilled to have slept through things, to not remember, to not know how much time has passed. But it sounds like she dodged a bullet this time. To think that someone else might have had to live through the worst of it, through the truth of the scar on her arm. No one left in town knows about it. Five knew. Doc knows she’s immune, but doesn’t know about the bite. Claire knew, but she’s been gone for awhile now. To think about Riley dying.

And the very worst of it, the source of her rage and her anguish. Joel, out of her reach. Joel, who she couldn’t save, who she can’t forgive, who she can’t let go of. She can feel herself start to choke on that now, the memory visceral and immediate. But she’s used to shoving it away, stamping it down. At least her memory remains her own, unshared and private.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” she says, her voice thick with the struggle of that panicked memory. “So Mathias is still a fucking nightmare, huh? Yeah, I guess just waking up covered in dust isn’t that bad. Glad I missed out on your shitty field trip.”

She gets it together enough to halfway change the subject.

“Was it still fall or…whatever? I mean, like, was the weather still bullshit? It’s warm now but it wasn’t last I remember.”