[ Well, the surprise is to be expected. He'd count to see it on just anyone he might tell this story too. But at least Kirigan doesn't seem clueless, it looks like he actually understands what Jim's telling him, how it all happened. It saves him trying and failing to explain the complexities of time travel or black holes.

But the shock lingers, and so Jim waits. He understands that it's a lot of information to parse, to dissect and absorb, and frankly it's not a story that Jim has shared with many people, even those in his own world. Here, he can count with the fingers of one hand how many people know he's the product of a diverging timeline. ]

Well, it's there, [ He shrugs. ] It exists, it will continue to exist. The existence of one reality doesn't erase all the other parallel ones out there, no matter how similar or distant. All the people I've met here so far are proof of that.