[Almost a month... oh, no. That isn't going to be very easy to explain away at all. Although, even humans can certainly survive without food for certain periods of time. Longer, if there's water - and she can't imagine that the doctors didn't at least try to get her to drink in her sleep...

Her gaze drops to her tea, and she keeps the sugar stick submerged in it for a little while longer, idly stirring it as she considers how to answer him.]

I suspected that it might. That is... it is why I did not want to sleep, when we first set out.

[She'd been pushing herself. She imagines Claude must have noticed it - he's not unobservant, even though they don't know each other as well as they could.]

The same thing happened when I was younger, when my mother died. That is part of why Seteth was— is always so protective of me.

[...is. It has to be is. It can't be was. She doesn't want to talk about him in the past tense.]

...I am sorry to have worried you.