It's meant as a comfort, Derrica knows. She understands that Ellie doesn't want anyone to be upset over this injury. It's worse somehow, knowing that. Questioning whether Ellie would have stitched this alone, on her own, if she'd been given opportunity.

"You're hurt," Derrica tells her. "It's not okay."

The shock of it hasn't left her, not really. The terrifying swoop of that moment when she'd seen the bite and thought Ellie would die still hangs over them. (This is twice in so many months where someone she cares very much for has come uncomfortably close to death, nevermind the memories of Holden with a poisoned arrow in his boot, deflecting attention until he couldn't.)

What a thing it is, to have collected so many people who take injury and sacrifice in stride. It terrifies her.

"And I can't do anything but stitch it," is muted, frustration simmering beneath every other emotion.