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Claude lapsed into a prolonged silence after the question. Her eyes slowly drifting back and forth as she gazed at different star clusters in thought. Of course her silence meant she was thinking. Inwardly, she was minding herself. Was she saying something that was possibly too strong? Where could this conversation go if she kept on? She felt that nothing she was saying, or could say, was out of line though. Friend could be able to talk to each, right? Ah but that was where the hiccup was with that logic. Chance still didn't have a grasp on that yet, and the awkward times they experienced all stemmed from that lack of understanding.

She ignored the question about the stars for now.

"Right now, it's not that you don't want to. It's that you don't know how, and that trepidation stops you from even trying." She paused, and stayed reclined on the sand, staring up at the stars while she spoke. Claude didn't feel irritated, and she didn't feel like this was dampening the evening either, a complete 180 from her companion. "I'm not going to get mad. I'm not going to leave. I'm not going to disregard what you say. Maybe I won't always know what you're saying and what you mean, but I'll try, and I'll work on it until I reach some sort of understanding."

In this moment, she did feel a bit envious of the stars. Even if Chance didn't talk to them, he at least opened up to them. Right now it felt like she was trying to talk to a brick wall that just got thicker the more she tried.

Her chest heaved in a silent sigh.

Definitely talking to a very thick brick wall.

Briefly she wondered if Chance was close to anyone else...well...as close as Chance could be to someone else. Hm. Regardless, she wondered if there was someone he had an easier time talking to...or if this happened to others. If it happened with others. It was a thought, and a thought it would stay.

"The conversation branched into two different points." She replied, as placid as ever. "Why you're not as enthusiastic as usual, and now why you won't talk about why you're not enthusiastic as usual. I'm trying to find out the former, while pointing out the latter."

That made her smile.

The way Chance went about throwing that back at her was, to a point, endearing. Child like. Warped, too, but closer to getting to what she felt was the answer to her question earlier. "I never said the words 'meaningless' and 'superficial'." She felt that was important to note. "I pointed out that you used your favorite pass time, additionally, as a means of escape, and it's important to know that.

Her smiled faded as quickly as it came, and her eyes narrowed briefly as she went over the memories of their past conversation. At no point did she ever say 'unrealistic' and 'shallow' in regards to his star gazing--Ah. Wait. She remembered now. She'd been so focused on the last bit she had said to him before she left his room that day, that it was almost easy to overlook what else was said.

"I used 'unrealistic' and 'shallow' in regards to how you wanted to learn about emotions." She replied. "Not about star gazing."

"It's not."

Claude sat back up, because this conversation was starting to go in circles. She rested her weight on her hands again as she looked at him, her gaze lidded. "Chance, I asked you earlier how you were feeling. You didn't answer me. I feel confident in assuming why you won't answer me, because there's ways to read people, but there's things I obviously don't know about how you're feeling. They're two different things."

She reached up to shake some sand out of her hair.

"I'm asking because I don't know. I'm asking because I feel like there's a bigger picture. I can't see it yet. Just the bits and pieces here and there we're pointlessly squabbling over right now." Claude stopped messing with her hair to rest her hand back on the sand.

"Please help me instead of fight me."

She listened, quietly of course, as he spoke, and waited a good long beat when it seemed like he had finished before she replied.

"You can. I don't expect anything from you. I hope. I hope you will try and when I asked earlier, you didn't. You avoided and dismissed it." Which was the bottom line. Why is was becoming compounded when the problem was simple was a bit beyond her.

"As of right now, you won't try unless I push."

She eyed him for a moment, softly humming, before she laid back down onto the sand again, her hands coming to rest on her stomach once more.

At this point, she had nothing more to say that wouldn't stoke the fire. It felt like another impasse, and yet another time she felt the need to reflect and analyze herself this evening. "I have nothing more to say to you, tonight." She hold him in earnest.