"Slipper-socks," she offered the proper word, still a little suspicious, but hoping that it didn't show too clearly in her tone. "Oh… thanks." Her gratitude was genuine, at least. "I haven't seen these since I was a teenager," she mused. She always got a new pair every year from Grandma and Grandpa Nichols, in their giant gift baskets. "And the blanket, too… thank you. Hospital blankets are sort of…" she searched for the word, "ineffective."
He asked her how she was feeling and she pondered the answer carefully. Rae had never been afraid of strangers. Besides, if this guy was a creep, all she had to do was call out, right? Her voice may not have worked well, but she had at least enough power to do that. And he had brought her gifts. She figured that at least warranted an explanation. "I'm… alive?" was all she said at first. "Feeling a bit like death warmed over, but alive. And I'll make it. I haven't survived this long to let a cold-flu-pneumonia-plague thing take me."
And she meant that.
She paused, biting her lip and then looking up at the man. "I don't mean to be rude… but do I know you? Or did you just, like… hear about my adventure?" she asked. "I don't recognize the name Jude."