"I'm not sure there's really much left to find." Brennan wished that didn't sound as pathetic as it did. Though, pathetic as it was, he couldn't have been more honest. Four years of slowly draining away himself has left him empty. It might be the reason he was caving into himself. It was terrifying to think about, that there was nothing left of a real person inside of him. Sometimes he didn't even feel real, like if they tore him open, he would be a magnificent clockwork of pieces, mechanical and soulless. He'd pictured that scenario so often that he wouldn't be surprised if it turned true. That didn't make it any easier to sleep at night however, when some small voice, whatever hadn't been purged in training, rang quietly in the vast caves and holes.
He had long since stopped defining himself by anything other than his position in life, and when that became the largest facet of what other's laughably call his personality, it became something hard to part with. It had been a long time since Brennan really missed the way he could act around people that he cared for, the way he could sit in amicable silence with his good friend, the way he could talk to someone who knew there was more to him than architecture and seriousness, the way not everyone thought of him as a sour, distant asshole.
Kate's presence and her promise broke a barricade, opened something up, and all the years of forced exile took the breath right out of his lungs as everything that he had thought he'd destroyed tried to overwhelm him. It was a lot, too much, to carry. Too many years of being efficient, distant, alone, automatic, made feeling horrible. Things that never got to him before were tearing him up, things he'd never thought about fighting for attention. It was too much to handle and he spent all his energy walling it back into it's space, blocking off all the emotions he hadn't let himself feel, though a few couldn't be tamed back. Most of which had to do with Kate, this faerie or figment. He couldn't put names or definitions down for whatever they were, but he knew that he felt something for her. He certainly couldn't claim that he was in love; that was extraordinarily forward and almost impossible, but he had respect for her, gratitude and her words gave him this feeling of permanence and dependability that he could cling to, and come whatever may.
"Together." He echoed, not able to look away from her, the feeling of her hand over his heart strangely comforting in spite of the fact that she was the first person to break his personal space bubble in the longest time. Some part of him, the clockwork part, brought his arm up with the intention of removing her hand, but whatever humanity in him that she was dragging up clasped her hand in his, holding it where it was instead. "Hopefully we won't find anything bad."