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"You really can't see reds or greens?"
Rosalind was perched side-saddle on her brother's lap, twisting at the waist and leaning in to examine Robert's eye as though she would be able to divine their secrets from simple observation alone. They were perfectly like her own, down to the way his gaze could not bear the sustained eye-contact. However, every time his eyes would dart away, he would willingly drag his focus back to her, to facilitate - no, to put up with - no, indulge - his sister's curiosity.
"You're color blind?"
"You know very well, sister mine, that you cannot see color-blindness in another's eyes," Robert replied, doing his best to put up with the more tactile elements of Rosalind's examination. As she pulled open the lids of his right eye and gave his watering left a little rest, he continued, "It does make this color scheme you've chosen for us rather a poor one."
"It's not as though you could mix up the ties. And anyways, humor me. I always knew that grandfather was color-blind... hm."
"Did you have a thought?" Robert's patience was beginning to grow thin, but he was hardly going to push Rosalind to the floor.
"I was just thinking, that this... could have something to do with the recent proposal of sex-linked traits by Thomas Hunt Morgan. That you would be color-blind, and our grandfather as well, but Mother and I are not."
Robert, who had been rather tense up until that moment, relaxed. "Really? How curious."
As she finally leaned back, Rosalind smiled. "Yes.... I wonder, how many other people have read Morgan's paper and are having this exact same revelation with their relatives?"
"I do think we might have the benefit of being more identical than most fraternal siblings," he suggested.
"One could even say all of them." She shrugged. "But it's really not too much of a leap. Still, we're physicists, brother, not biologists. It's not our paper to write, and besides - don't you think that we have an unfair advantage? Our 1912 has been far longer than anyone else's on the planet - this or any other Earth's."
Robert sighed, softly.
"Yes.... but doesn't that make you a little sad?" He asked. He never had the clearest understanding of what his sister did and did not take seriously, because her way of hiding her thoughts and emotions was utterly alien to his own. "That we'll never see the advances others will make in the future, save the little glimpses we've seen through windows?"
"Of course." She said, her tone short.
Ah - of course he should have realized that she took this seriously - she loathed talking about it, in the way that she loathed discussing any topic that put her face to face with the emotions she didn't understand, and that he was no help whatsoever in interpreting. However, just when he expected that she would try to change the topic, she continued, her face tense.
"But what you should remember, brother, is that we should be dead. That we have any borrowed time to live out is a blessing in and of itself. We should be grateful for these moments..."
She slumped inwards, resting her head against her brother's shoulder. "For the little happiness and comfort we can still have. But never fear.... the day will come where our task will be complete and history's course righted - and then we can rest. You can rest."
That was another of their differences. He wanted peace. She needed to keep everything she'd ever wanted from slipping through her fingers. Because she never delved too deeply into her feelings, he knew that he would never understand the full weight of what she was giving up for his happiness.
"Thank you for indulging me," Robert said, quietly, meaning it.
"No, thank you," She replied, back to her brisk and pleasant tone, as she took out her handkerchief and blotted the lingering and unpleasant wetness of tears from the tips of her fingers, "after all, it was your eyes, and my idle curiosity."