What Gretchen tired to say was, "I just talked to him, too. He seemed fine." Unfortunately, Mark likely didn't hear this, because he continued speaking, and his excitable voice had drowned the trainee's reasonable observation out completely.

So instead she sighed, shook her head in exasperated amusement, and gave the assist an 'after you' sort of gesture.

She let this play out for a bit, because strange as it was, she'd realized that being roped into playing detective with Mark sort of trumped mini pet cage cleaning duty, and she hadn't been looking forward to that.

zoobey
lol, phone typo fix.