Ned picks up another rock to throw in the water, watches it skip on the surface and then sink down. Rather like this talk of theirs has sunken down into melancholy. Really, he didn't mean for that to happen. Ned tries to spend as little time as possible thinking about being here, about his own helplessness, about what might happen to any of them at any second. But there's only so much he can do to stop it. He'd spent so much of his life spinning out the possibilities, trying to calculate the safest path for himself. He's in a situation now where no amount of calculation will do any good, and it makes him feel as powerless as he had when he was a child.

And even though he remembers how sick he'd gotten last time, even though he'd told himself it probably wasn't a good idea to ever get that way again, he hears himself saying, "You know, I'm pretty sure there's still some half-decent stuff to drink left in the bar." It's an invitation, without explicitly being one. He'd ducked in there the other day seeing if there was food left in the kitchen, and he'd been surprised by how many bottles were still around.