Kate couldn't say that she was surprised that Brennan hadn't noticed the cold or even her for that matter before she had spoken. It was easy to see that he had been lost in his own thoughts, the patrol he had came up here for forgotten as whatever he had been trying to work out took over.
As he had stared at her, Kate had patiently waited for him to process. Anyone else might have pointed out that it wasn't a normal thing to be doing but it was clear to her he needed those few minutes. During that time she had been watching his face and the emotions that moved across it. Fear, anxiety, and uncertainty all seemed to take a turn. It wasn't the fear that she seen everyday in those below them. This was a fear of something else. A fear of just feeling perhaps.
"I'm Kate," she offered back, a smile on her face now that he had spoken. She meet the most intense eyes she had seen in a long time as she said it. The smile on her face was probably the first real one he had been offered if one accounted for all the whispering that had been going on about him. She didn't offer her hand in greeting though. She read Brennan as a man who didn't touch others easily so she also squished down the urge to reach out and touch his cheek and try to smooth away what was bothering him. Instead she kept her arms around herself making sure to look as nonthreatening as possible. Oh sure, he could clearly take her in a fight hands down but that wasn't the kind of threat she was thinking of. There was raw emotion in Brennan's eyes and the wrong move now could cause him to shut down and close off, which if she read him right combined with what she had heard was what had lead him to this point to start with.
Any one else might have asked him if he wanted to talk about it or if he was okay. Kate herself had been asked if she was okay so many times through out herself and especially when she had been young that she wanted to scream when someone asked that so as a rule she didn't ask it of others. Besides it seemed such a stupid question to ask if someone clearly wasn't. The fact that people bothered to ask if one was okay when they were showing pain, tears, or even while bleeding was beyond Kate. Why did some people insist on asking the obvious? Brennan's emotion crisis was there in front of her and she so wasn't asking that. Neither though was she going to ignore the fact that it was there. He clearly needed someone, maybe not to talk, but to be there whether he knew it or not. Which meant she wasn't going to start small talk either. 'How about them zombies out there?' was a question that was off the table. Besides, she normally saved small talk for people she really wasn't interested in and was forced to talk to. She'd rather sit in silence with someone of interest than do small talk with someone annoying.
"I have a theory," she started, breaking the silence that had filled the second floor after she had offered up her name in return. "They say that events like this bring out the best or the worst in people and I agree. You see it all around. Some people are stepping up to help and some would rather push you in front of a passing infected than give you a hand up and help you get away. The world doesn't work in black and white though. Sure, there's heroes and there's villains but even now there's still the average person who gets lost in the cracks. They do what is expected of them and start losing themselves in the process. Kind of like running on autopilot." Her bright blue eyes stayed locked with Brennan's as she spoke. She didn't turn away and look out a window as she talked or fidget. If something was worth saying and was important, Kate believed in giving full eye contact. "You see the problem with autopilot though it that you're just running on your basic systems and everything that you are gets pushed aside. To me that's just existing. Me, I want to live not simply exist and living is feeling whether we like or not."