Dove almost said coffee. It was an easy answer, and Kael would believe it because he had seen how carefully she handled the little milk packets.
Instead she looked at the latched gate and said, "Being able to close a door without having to explain why."
Kael waited. He did not look hurt that she had mentioned wanting to shut people out while he was sitting with her.
"I could be tired and ugly and eat something directly out of a container," she continued. "Nobody would decide it meant I was rejecting an entire species. I could just have a bad evening."
"You can have a bad evening here."
"I’m doing excellent work in that department already."
He smiled a little, but she could see him listening past the joke. Dove set her spoon in the bowl and tried to find words that did not sound like complaints about a place that had kept her alive.
"I knew how things worked. I knew what I could buy, who would try to overcharge me, and which promises were garbage. I wasn’t happy every minute. I just knew how to be a person there."
Saying it made the hall blur slightly. She blinked until the counter came back into focus, irritated by how much effort her eyes required for such a basic task.
Kael did not tell her that she should be grateful. He did not tell her the Warren would become home once she found the right man. He sat with his bowl cooling beside him and let her miss a place he had never seen.
"You don’t have to like everything here to stay alive in it," he said.
Dove looked down at her meal. She could feel herself remembering this sentence later, which made her want to change the subject immediately.
"You should put that on the entrance," she said. "Right under the warning about terrible customer service."
He finished his meal before returning to the clinic. She did not ask him to stay this time. Wanting someone nearby did not have to become a problem she solved by keeping him from his work.
Before sleeping, she wrote DAY SIX at the top of one fresh sheet. Beneath it she listed three things she had chosen herself: the hair tie, the coffee invitation, and ending the conversation with Thorne. It was not a gratitude exercise. She would have bitten anyone who called it that.
It was evidence that the day had belonged to her in places. She folded the sheet beneath her stock count so nobody passing the counter would mistake it for something she wanted to discuss. Some things could stay private simply because she wanted them to.
Day Seven’s shop assortment held two sewing needles, four hairpins, and two cloths for ten coins. Dove bought it, leaving ten, then opened the daily mission panel while sitting safely behind the tarp.
Sell two items for ten bonus coins. Earn eight Favor Coins from the men to unlock the hot-drinks shelf. The preview showed instant coffee at six coins a sachet.
"You waited until I ran out?" she asked.
"Your goals now match your interests."
"That’s a very expensive way to say blackmail."
She accepted both missions. Yesterday’s dental shelf stayed open, and unsold stock remained available. Nothing reset except the daily targets. She brushed her teeth before opening the stall, briefly pleased that at least one part of her life now tasted normal.
Breakfast arrived through the usual meal service, hot rice and meat from a kitchen that still smelled of fried onions. Dove mixed her last milk packet into hot water and drank it slowly. It was not coffee, but it was warm and hers, and she refused to let yesterday’s better drink make today’s worthless.
Ash arrived before the hall grew busy. He waited while she put her empty bowl aside, then looked at the list pinned to the counter.
"You took the sample back."
"He gave it back. There’s a difference."
"I want to discuss a regular supply for the clinic."
"You can discuss buying something without standing like you’re about to arrest the price tag."
His red eyes narrowed, but he remained on the hall side. Dove disliked how easily she noticed his loose hair against the pale skin of his throat. Being angry with a man should have made him less attractive. Her new body had apparently missed the staff meeting.
"What would you ask for?" he said.
She had expected a demand before a question. That did not make the question harmless.
"First, I’d ask Kael what he can actually use. Then I’d ask what happens when I can’t supply it. I’m not promising a bottle every time somebody knocks."
"People could need it urgently."
"People urgently need things you can’t give them every day. Does that make everything you own available to whoever asks loudest?"
His gaze settled on her for a long moment. "No."
The answer surprised her enough that she had to stop herself filling the silence. She wanted to win the argument. She did not need to rescue it when it finally gave her something useful.
"Then we start there," she said. "No promises until Kael and I agree on what we’re testing. No bottle leaving my hands without an agreed use."
"You trust him."
"I trust him to ask before taking things. That’s a very specific achievement."
Ash glanced at the gate. The protective hinge cover was back in place, and Dove had marked the edge with a strip of her paper. He had seen her notes during the inspection. She wondered whether he remembered which parts of the stall he had found worth respecting before the water appeared.
"You think every question is a threat," he said.
"From you? I’ve been working with the available evidence."
His expression changed, not enough to soften, but enough to show the words had reached him. Dove asked Sprout for a balance only after he turned toward the pipe’s sudden rattle. Three coins for his irritation brought her to thirteen, with three of the day’s eight Favor Coins earned.
"Five more," Sprout noted.
"I’m discussing water, not checking whether the Alpha has a loyalty card."
Across the hall, Thorne had stopped unloading household supplies. His eyes moved from Ash to Dove’s closed gate, and Ash turned to follow her glance.
"Your work is over there," the Alpha told him.
Thorne lifted the next box, slowly. Dove had never seen somebody make carrying toilet paper look like a threat.
The sound came again, sharper than yesterday. Ash stepped toward the recess entrance, then stopped when Dove moved to block the gate.
"The heating line," he said. "Move your blankets away from it."
"I reported the noise yesterday."
She reached behind the tarp and pulled the nearest blanket forward. The pipe gave a hard knock that she felt through the shelf beneath her hand. A wet line appeared around the joint near the wall.
Ash told her to leave the recess. Dove grabbed her papers before answering, and the joint split with a hiss that swallowed the beginning of her reply.