Dove looked at the fallen shelf, then at Thorne. She wanted her blanket back. She wanted him to stay away from her. Both wants were real, and she was tired of feeling as if choosing one erased the other.
"Go in," she said. "I’m staying here with Kael."
Thorne nodded and stepped past the removed gate. He waited for the maintenance men to move their tools, then lifted the dropped end while the salvage keeper pulled the trapped blanket free.
The movement showed the effort in his shoulders without making it look easy. Dove watched because she needed to know what was happening to her bed, not because the man had become an attractive furniture commercial. His coat pulling tight across his back was an annoying additional detail.
They carried the shelf into the cleared section of hall. Thorne set it down where Ash directed. Then he bent, picked her pencil out of a dry crack beside the wall, and held it where she could see it.
"This came out of your papers."
She took it from his open palm. "Thanks. I need that for telling people they’re overcharging me."
His mouth twitched, and he watched until she had put it safely away. Ash had to repeat his instruction about moving the shelf farther along the hall.
"Can it be fixed?" she asked the keeper.
"The brace can. The board needs drying. You won’t want a wet mat under you tonight."
"I didn’t want a wet mat this morning either, but the selection was limited."
He checked the mat and said the household stores could replace it while the old one dried. Ash confirmed that arrangement. Basic bedding came with keeping residents alive, apparently even when the resident had made him count soap while bleeding two days ago.
She could accept a dry mat without calling it affection. Dove held on to that thought when Ash said a private room was still available for her.
"For today, or because you’ve decided the stall is finished?" she asked.
"Because you cannot sleep against an open heating line."
"Then I want the repair estimate before we discuss where I sleep. I can wait somewhere warm while they work."
Ash turned to the maintenance men. They had the joint and expected to finish before the evening meal if the surrounding pipe held during the check. He repeated the condition instead of promising her a time he could not control.
Dove agreed to wait at the clinic. She took the blanket, mug, bowl, and papers with her. The salvage keeper kept the removed gate and hardware together for refitting, returning the loose screws from her pocket to his small tray before she left.
Varek remained at the cleared area as part of keeping the hall open. Dove did not confuse that with hiring a personal stock guard. Her sale goods remained in the space, where she had put them before opening that morning.
The clinic was warm, occupied, and full of things that did not belong to her. Kael offered a bench beside a screen while he checked his patients. She sat with her blanket around her legs and placed the mug on the floor between her feet so nobody would kick it.
For several minutes she listened to the ordinary sounds of work. Kael washed his hands. A patient asked for another blanket. Someone complained about the taste of broth and was told the kitchen had not consulted the clinic about seasoning.
Dove almost laughed. The sound caught behind her teeth when she looked down and realized she was sitting with her blanket and papers in her lap and her mug between her feet again.
She had been doing well that morning. That was the part that hurt. She had known what she wanted to say to Ash, how much stock she owned, and where she would put the new thread. One broken joint had made her a person waiting for someone else to say she could go home. She pressed a thumb against the mug’s handle, checking that it was still whole, then stopped before she could make herself check again.
Kael returned after settling his patient. He crouched far enough away that she could stand without climbing around him, then asked whether she wanted him to look at her feet.
She agreed. Her skin was cold but unbroken, and he found dry clinic socks and slippers to replace the damp borrowed pair. She pulled them on herself behind the screen, absurdly grateful for the chance to finish a small task without an audience.
"I know this isn’t the worst thing happening today," she said when he returned for the damp clothes.
"Does it need to be?"
She stared at him. The answer she had prepared involved other people suffering more and her being ridiculous. He had stepped around the whole argument as if he did not need it from her.
"I liked my stupid shelf," she admitted.
"You can like it again after they repair it."
"It had terrible customer reviews."
"Most of those were yours."
She laughed then, once and properly, and it hurt less than holding the sound inside. Kael smiled without looking pleased with himself for producing it.
Before he went back to work, she caught his sleeve between two fingers. He stopped immediately, looking at her hand and then her face.
"Could you sit for a minute? If nobody needs you right now."
He checked the room before agreeing. She liked that he checked. He sat at the other end of the bench, leaving space between them, and she let her fingers fall from his sleeve without apologizing for having asked.
They sat until a patient called him. Dove released him with a small nod, then opened her notes and gave herself something she could finish: the stock count still matched. Not one sale item had been lost this time.
Sprout confirmed thirteen coins when she checked. No new reactions had paid. Her sales mission remained at zero of two items, and the Favor Coin mission at three of eight.
"Does saving my stock count as selling it to myself?"
"No," Sprout replied.
"You’re suspiciously awake when the answer is disappointing."
She closed the panel. The missions could wait while she got her home back.
Ash arrived near midday with water darkening the cuff of his coat. He told her the broken joint was out and the replacement being fitted. Then he pushed back his sleeve to check a raw patch of skin along his forearm.
Kael saw it at the same moment Dove did. Ash had reached the shutoff while the line was still hot, and he had not said a word about the burn.