The world around might well not exist for all Hawke can focus on it. His sights are turned inward to the crumbling ruin of whatever self worth he'd managed to hold onto after being in this place for so long without change, after the Fade, after Kirkwall. He'd stood tall against tyrants, invaders, ancient evils and unfathomable monsters yet all it takes for him to crumble is this. Is words.

Did you really think you mattered?

He leans into Chris without registering he's there, still struggling to breathe amidst the tide of shallow sobs that bleed everything out that ever kept him upright, that kept him moving forward. Words tumble from him in a mess, hard when he tried to sort what he should say but slipping easily between his lips when it's sprung from the depths of a battered heart. "I'm so sorry. I can't. I can't be what they need me to be. What I should be. I've tried, I swear I'm trying. Please forgive me, I-I'm not strong enough, I couldn't save- I can't- Always too slow, t-too weak. I'm not a hero or a leader or the best of anything. F-forgive me..."

He curls his fingers tight into the hair at the back of his neck, not tugging nor tearing but still tense and hateful even as he finds he has no tears left. He keeps himself there, hollow, panting and hating himself all the more for how he's fallen apart. He's done the very thing that had stopped him from pushing past Chris and to Amelia or Morrigan's sides. He's made a burden of himself for Chris, a mess to clean up. He shouldn't be this, can't be this, but here he is. Here he's always been, just too blind to see it. No wonder Anders - even kind as he was - would try to push him away. He'd had enough of managing Hawke along with everything else. How long before Chris feels that too? Amelia? Morrigan? How long would he fool himself into thinking he could have so much?

"Y-you should go," he tells Chris weakly, with no conviction, but the tension leaving him looks like giving up.

I'm not worth it.