Carver's the moody teenager who's always just a little too sulky to make good friends and views any offers of help or friendship with suspicion and always looks for hidden motives behind others actions. But Garrett loves him despite or because of these things, he wouldn't change anything about his irritable little brother, not now when there's just the two of them left, even though Garrett is an apostate and Carver a templar recruit or perhaps because of that too.

Because for once Carver does something not for himself but for someone else, to protect his brother and to be there if the magic went wrong after all and Garrett would need him. And he chooses to stand by his brother against his Commander and his fellow recruits because family comes first although it has taken him this long to fully understand it.

And after, when it is all over he stays behind, to cover up for Garrett and Anders so they can disappear and be free. He owes that to his brother and his sister who never made it this far. He chooses to stay behind in a prison of his own making to give Garrett a chance of freedom.

And when an unsigned letter comes from somewhere in Tevinter many weeks later, with veiled words and a stick-figure drawing of two people hand-in-hand, he folds it up inside his breastplate and keeps it there, and he knows they made it - that's all he needs to know. It's all worth it even if he'd never see his brother again.