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"It was... awful. Terrible for Hanna. Taylor was furious and hurting, of course."

She pauses to consider her words. "But at the same time... for me, this wasn't as bad as some of the times when I was monitoring the unpaired inmates. This was horrible in the moment, but by the next day I was myself again. It didn't eat away at me and leave me exhausted, or at a breaking point. I didn't have to deal with an unpaired inmate killing my inmate, or one unpaired inmate executing a revenge plot against another. I wasn't responsible for every side of a feud, trying to manage everyone's safety and anger at once. That left me so drained that it sent me off the Barge crying to Warren."

There's a slight shake of her head against his shoulder. "It's the reason I moved to the infirmary. I couldn't take it anymore. I was so worn out that I'm not sure whether I would still be on the Barge at all if I'd tried to keep doing that job."

It sounds truly exhausting, as well as terrible and infuriating. Still, Will suspects there's something else going on. He nods and nuzzles his head against hers a bit, softly- old habit from being a wolf with her. It's meant as a comfort.

"I'm glad you switched, truly. And I'm glad you took a break when you needed to. You didn't let the job break you. I've had a...bad history with that in the past." And yet, he's smiling a little fondly, more because thinking about his time with the FBI only highlights how far he's come here.

"I did...want to ask you something. It's not entirely off topic, but it'll probably seem like it. Have you ever heard of Autism before? It's a mental condition. Malcolm's autistic, actually."

Ulla sighs appreciatively as he nuzzles her tightening her arm around him in an affectionate squeeze.

But there's a soft sound of surprise at the seeming subject change.

"Yes. I've been reading a lot of neurology and psychology and psychiatry books in the past few months, because I wanted to start thinking about spells that might serve in place of different medications. In case Malcolm is ever stranded without his again." It just hasn't occurred to her to apply any of that to herself.

"Oh," he says. Pleasant surprise makes way for a touched smile. "That's so thoughtful of you. Although with those medicines, it's probably mostly dealing with his cPTSD and how that affects so many of his systems."

He can feel himself wanting to go into it. He tends to wander when the topic is Malcolm. So he tries to come back around.

"I mostly asked because I suspect you might also be autistic. It would explain why you felt more overwhelmed in a situation with more people, not all of them people you knew. Not only that, but you were also managing expectations. I'm sort of to the side of autism, but- that sounds like it'd send me into overwhelm, too."

He's used to people not taking the armchair diagnosis well, but Ulla doesn't have any of the context or societal history of what people thought they new about the condition. "It would also explain why you and me and Malcolm got along so well, so quickly...breach aside. What do you think?"

Ulla will come back around to the topic of the research she started for Malcolm, but she's thoroughly derailed by Will's diagnosis.

"You mean it's not just one more way I'm strange and will never fit with anyone?" Hold on a moment while she recalibrates everything. "Not that my life is like that now, but it used to be. The old instincts are still there. They'll always be there."

Under the surface, even if they fade to whispers rather than shouts as they're proven wrong time and time again.

"Warren once had to tell me it's normal that I don't feel attracted to people unless I love them. That some people are just made like that, it wasn't only me. I'd always thought it was only one more thing wrong with me."

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