Welcome to Gaia! ::

She was in the library, her head propped in her hand as she was leaned on the table, reading through a book on maritime disasters. Her lidded gaze was a bit more tired than usual, and worn, but she luckily had enough energy going still to read and retain. Claude idly noted the feel of her phone vibrating nearby, indicating she got a message, but it was ignore for a good chunk of time in favor of finishing this chapter.

The page was leafed, and she finally pulled her phone over with one hand, checking the messages with a finger. She was sort of surprised to see a message from Chance...this soon. It'd definitely been more than a few days, but still...for some reason she had been anticipating him being...for a lack of better words, cross with her for quite some time. She only thought about the message for a few moments before she typed back a reply and sent it.

Because who only talked on the training field was implied.

Hm.

It was one simple word, but given the circumstances, it was pretty remarkable. Also, Chance trying. Hm. She stared at her phone for a moment longer before she closed her eyes and let out a sigh. Talking. She had done enough talking the last time she'd seen him for the rest of this month and well into the next one, and the thought of talking now was utterly exhausting.

But she would. Because they were friends.

Claude pushed her book closed and stood, not bothering to reply to the message, which was the indicator she was coming.

With her book in one hand, and the thumb of her other hooked into a pants pocket, Claude appeared on the training field, and found the other easily enough. She approached, looking down at him with her lidded gaze, and waited.

"Fine. Cut to the chase." Because she was not oblivious to the awkward path they were were on right now, and the sooner it got worked on the sooner they could, hopefully, move past it. Now was not a time for small talk.

When Chance got to it, Claude took a seat on the ground as well. She quietly settled across from him, placing her book on the grass beside her. Her knees were pulled up and she loosely wrapped her arms around them, holding onto her wrist as she looked at him, and listened.

There was no smug look of satisfaction on her face when Chance admitted the last bit, just her usual. She too, sat in silence for a moment longer before she spoke up again, still tired at the thought of even trying to form a word, but needing to none the less. "I know." That he wasn't a robot, and that he didn't see people as lab rats. "Then you should be mindful of how you word your intentions." Because they had come across as terribly scientific. Like something to be dissected on an operating table.

"I don't expect you to turn into anything. When you're vague, and giving me next to nothing to go off on with what you're thinking and feeling, I can only respond to what I know and speculate after." She paused for a moment, tired of talking, and taking that moment to think as well, to add on to her thought. "I also know that you don't know half the things everyone else does about relationships and emotions." Her tone didn't rub it in, but just stated the truth. "So communicating what you're feeling and thinking is difficult, and this is where we're at an impasse currently."

Claude was drawn into her thoughts at the mention of turning off one's self. It did happen, under the most extreme circumstances, but that was either here or there. On some note, she just felt like she could sort of relate to the idea of a radical personality shift. It happened to her.

She snapped back to focus though, luckily not missing out on what Chance was saying. "Yes. I understand." Hm. Not what he was going through, exactly, but that she understood the reasoning behind it. Hm. She gave a small nod. At the end, she spoke up again, and unlike Chance, she was not so proud or reluctant to dish out an honest apology when she felt it appropriate. Unless you were Lex, then she would hold onto it as the day was long and then some.

Her intentions, however well meaning, had caused for some obvious discomfort.

"Sorry. It was never my intention to make you feel forced into becoming something you're not." She had said it before, so she felt it redundant to say it again, but she just wanted to help him. Claude stared at him thoughtfully for a moment though, before one arm left her legs to reached into the pocket of her hunter coat. She pulled out a small folded red square of card stock, and held it up between two fingers. She was cashing in a favor.

"Just don't be your own limiter." She made this request because she felt that it was important. She felt that Chance had been resistant to some things thus far, solely because he deemed himself incapable without giving it an earnest go.

Claude gave a soft sigh, her eyes lidding further. More talking. Wonderful.

"A quote for you. Another's words: never say that you can't do something, or that something seems impossible, or that something can't be done, no matter how discouraging or harrowing it may be; human beings are limited only by what we allow ourselves to be limited by: our own minds."