"Because I didn't want you to get hurt, because I wanted to prove I could do it myself, and because I knew you'd try to stop me," Maybe the last reason outweighs the others, but it doesn't make them less true. She knows it's patronizing and pointless, but she wants to keep Kate away from this.

"It was stupid," she can recognize that, she'll own up to her mistakes, "I nearly died." It's hard to tell by looking at her, but it had been a close call and Steph knows that if her mystery rescuer hadn't turned up, she probably wouldn't have made it home.