Mattie went a little cold when Nick asked her story. She turned her head away for fear of betraying the raw emotions, even though it was in all likelihood too dark for him to see her–– she couldn't see the tear that ran down his face, and barely saw the hand that cape up to wipe it. She made no comment. She'd just listened to his story with the silent solemnity of attending a funeral, picked at the skin on her fingertips, and gazed at the weakening orange light that not long ago had been a burning body. 

"My story," she started in a hoarse whisper. She wanted to tell him it didn't matter. She wanted to say it was none of his business. But it didn't seem fair to listen through his story, something so personal as that, and then not give him anything. So she cleared her throat and went on. 

"We were able to hoard enough supplies and barricade ourselves in the house," she said with a downward glance at pitch-blackness. "Some of 'em tried to break in. Infected [i]and[/i] looters. But we managed to chase them away. Surprisingly. And then for a couple weeks nothing happened. We stayed in mostly. Made the best of it. But then we ran out of water, and I... I went out. Collected more. I had tablets for it but they weren't left in long enough." She shivered, but made no move to take back the jacket she'd given Nick. After all, it wasn't the cold that was making her shudder. 

"It made us all sick, all of us. Cholera I think. No plumbing, almost no cleaning fluid...you know that stuff will spread no matter how hard you try to contain it. I don't know how I survived." She finished by slapping a mosquito off of her neck and wondering if it carried West Nile or something. She didn't want to test her luck, that was for sure. "So, um, there's a life lesson. Always wait half an hour for the iodine to work."