Oh shit. Someone was paying attention. It's almost gratifying, in a way--to seed a conversation at a specific point in time and see the growth in later exchanges, the connection between points like a beautiful equation filling out a graph, a singular line extrapolated to generate not just data but meaning.

It's good practise, if he's being honest.

But Dirk is on the one hand fascinated by the 'authentic' sibling experience, and on the other wholly unable to relate to it in any way.

"If she was so special and brilliant, how did you confuse that with anyone else at all?" Though his question is such that they never actually left it, they can circle back to the subject of Dave in a minute.

The question itself is an uncommonly sincere one--almost non-judgmental, for once. Almost.

As non judgmental as the revelatory equivalent of being a goddamn alien could entail, anyway.