Listening to the advice of someone who had hated her for such a long time wasn't easy for Rae to do. Actually, listening to most anyone wouldn't have been easy at this point, because all she could feel was crushing devastation. Fear. Loneliness. But she knew, deep down, that Leah had been here before.
Why had this happened? She knew the technical why; Elliot was in the lab. Loose infected, all that. She knew that why. But... why? Hadn't they suffered enough? Hadn't the world thrown enough at them without shattering families who already had to reassemble themselves from old shattered families? And Elliot... he was... he was good. He'd overcome so much. Become braver, stronger... a hero in more than just the sense of the word that Rae always used. Why had this happened to him?
She turned and looked at Leah when the older woman reassured her not to apologize. But she did. She had to. Leah was usually the first one to point that out. She'd fallen apart when she needed to be strong. Wasn't that reason to apologize?
Leah pointed out the lack of suffering and Rae nodded dumbly. "I know." And she'd meant what she'd said, about him deserving better than a world like this. "I know, and I should be grateful for that. And in a way I am, but..." she swallowed thickly. It sounded strange to say. That she was grateful for his death in any manner of speaking.
"I... I made a scene," she sniffled, embarrassed. "I was selfish. I'm still being selfish!" she reprimanded herself. "He was... he's dying and I..." she turned and looked over her shoulder, back down the hall behind them and toward the room. "The last thing he'll... the last time he'll have seen me was like that. I have... I've got to go back. I have to... I've got to say I'm sorry," she insisted, probably sounding a little crazed as she tried to turn around.