Alex knows that tone of voice. She knows it. She knows it and she instantly is putting two and two together and coming up with: Strand is sick. "Richard." The word is instant and soft and worried. Moving closer to him on the bed by wiggling her knees, Alex leans over and presses the back of her hand to his forehead, and then moves it to touch behind his ears, because her mother has always said that was the best way of telling if someone had a fever.

"How long?" It's concern in her tone to match her frown as she moves her hand to his chin in order to look into his eyes and see if there's any sign of a fever in them. She wishes that she'd had a first aid kit or something, but beyond the small one with bandaids in her purse (just in case) she didn't have a thermometer or anything like that. She had advil, but that was it, and she didn't know if it would treat what it was that he'd had.