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Ulla's been in human form this whole month because she expected trouble after Cat King's fights right after they were paired. She wanted to be mobile. So the water in the cabin is all the way lowered, and Will isn't waiting long before she opens the door, pulling him into a hug.

"Do you want to curl up together in the grotto, or go sit in the chairs on the balcony?"

He hugs her back, lingering.
He's been lingering a little longer ever since the breach.

"Let's go to the grotto," he replies after a moment of thought. "Curling up sounds rather decadent right now."

He gives her a tired smile. "I'll follow you down?"

Ulla has a whole nest of pillows and blankets set up and waiting, with Hjerte already there. He would have come out to join them if Will chose differently. She sprawls on her side next to Hjerte and beckons welcomingly to Will. "I'm always happy to curl up with you, you know. It feels good. Like home."

It's a standing invitation. And she'd welcome the comfort right now too. As soon as Will joins her she'll curl into his side, resting her head on his shoulder and draping an arm across his waist. Hjerte will settle in the curve of Ulla's waist and drape a couple tentacles over Will too.

"Feels nothing like my original home, which is also good." Molly would curl up with him sometimes, but it always felt forced. Like he was taking on the persona of all those sappy Lifetime movies they'd watched together.

This is different. This recalls him and Ulla in the forest, curled up with each other for warmth. Never being alone. His arm goes around her shoulder and his other arm is relaxed (but palm up) so Hjerte can get a couple tentacles on him. He hasn't grabbed a blanket yet, but even just sprawled out on all these pillows, this feels decadent.

He lets out a pleased 'mmm' and lightly leans his head towards hers. "How are you holding up, Ulla? Truly." Inmates are often capable of awful things, but the Cat King just won the prize for Most Horrific Murder on Board in Current Memory. Being in charge of that? Well, it makes him glad for Wu Xin.

Ulla hums her acknowledgement. "It's the only thing I miss about my old home." She knows about wanting to leave that behind.

"I'm alright," she assures him softly, with a sigh. "Now, anyway. Hanna graduated afterwards, which helps. At least he gained something good out of the wreckage. The worst of it was... how guilty I felt knowing the pair of them had a fight before the breach. Realizing I chose the wrong restrictions in response."

She hesitates, then adds, "That, and it was fire. I've burned three times now. Once in my world, nearly to death. I was boiled alive once here; I've died a few times on the Barge, but that was the worst of them. And I was tortured with fire in someone's nightmare mindscape. It's the only injury that really shocks or scares me."

He hugs her closely, hearing about the fire. "And of course he chose it," Will murmurs, a coldness in his tone. It's one that surprises even him, and he makes sure he breathes before softening his words.

"I'm sorry, Ulla. What an absolute worst-case scenario. I don't blame you for feeling guilty, but you couldn't have known just how...creative you temp inmate was. Don't beat yourself up too hard about it."

"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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