"Okay, Spock, let's try chess again." Jim said.

"I do not see the point, you have won." Spock Prime said.

"Spock, it helps with your memory skills," Jim said. "Your father recommended it, and Bones agrees it will be beneficial to your hands to do something else other than play with a square triangle puzzle."

"That helps with our emotions." Spock Prime said.

Jim and Spock Prime cleared the board, placing their respective chess pieces back in their original pieces. This was the Vulcan's version of chess with different objects in the place of what humans were familiar to. They were rounded and had unusual shapes that were animal like in nature. Jim made his first move.

"Your turn, Spock." Jim said.

Spock tapped on his chin looking down toward the black chess pieces.

"I don't see the point." Spock Prime said.

"When you win, that's when you have recovered all of chess memories." Jim said.

Spock Prime raised an arched eyebrow.

"Captain--" Spock Prime started to say.

"Admiral." Jim caught Spock Prime, with his arms folded.

"Admiral, my memories are a bit unorganized at the time," Spock Prime said. "Chess is only going to make it more cluttered."

Jim did not seem to be convinced.

"I have defeated you for three rounds," Jim said, holding his three fingers up. "If I were told thirty years ago that I would be making conversation while playing chess to make a friend win, I would have laughed, and I am not laughing right now. You should be winning, and me winning feels very wrong."

Spock Prime slid forward a chess piece.

"So you are implying that you are more used to losing than winning in chess against me?" Spock Prime asked.

"Yes, Mr Spock." Jim moved his chess piece forwards. "That is the meaning of this game."

Spock Prime raised an arched eyebrow then he lowered it.

"Puzzling." Spock Prime said, moving his chess piece forward and caught one of Jim's chess pieces.

"Yes!" Jim said.

Spock Prime was baffled.

"You happy to lose one of your chess pieces . . . illogical." Spock Prime said.

"That's a move you made on me thirty years ago on the three dimensional chess." Jim said.

"You still remember that?" Spock Prime asked.

"It was the day we went into the galactic barrier." Jim said, quite fondly.

A feeling of recognition came into Spock Prime's head.

"Gary Michell." Spock Prime said.

Jim nodded.

"What happened to him?"

"He had to die. He was possessed by a godly being."

"We have come across many of them."

"Yes, that we did . . ."

Jim made his move.

"Did?"

"It ended. That mission we had. We went our separate ways."

"Did we keep in contact?"

"No, we didn't."

"Why?"

Jim looked up in the direction of Spock.

"I never knew why. . ." Jim cleared his throat then he made his next move after Spock Prime had. "Spock . . . I never told you this. I have been mulling it over. It was a random thought I had. Scalos." Spock Prime raised his head up moving his chess piece in a different direction. "If I hadn't been captain and we weren't that much of 'friends', I could have stayed back there or died." He rubbed his chin. "Died as a crew member. I could have been a security officer, a engineer, a science officer, a doctor, or a nurse. We wouldn't have the friendship we had then because Science does not usually work a lot with security. For two seconds I considered being her consort and I refused then. I would have fallen for Deela if I had been at the lowest point in my life. I could have doomed the entire ship. Nobody would have gone for me as you did. No one. She made me think how lucky I was to have friends such as you and Bones. What I am trying to say is: thank you for being my friend. Thank you for going after me."

"Jim, you are very concerned of something that is not in your control." Spock Prime noted.

Jim had a smug smile at first then he shook his head.

"Sometimes I play with the idea, Spock," Jim said as Spock Prime captured his white piece. "Half of the time it ends with you not noticing me, lamenting my death as a security officer, or not knowing you that well."

"Lamenting your death as a security officer?" Spock Prime asked.

"Red shirts died a lot on our missions." Jim said.

Spock Prime had a peculiar look.

"I remember that." Spock Prime said.

"And it could have been a friendship not like this," Jim said. "Something small and insignificant."

"You are a significant part of my life,Jim," Spock Prime noted. "I fail to see how you will be insignificant on any path of life your other selves could have lived."

"The only way we would, in that kind of lifetime, get our golden friendship is by a outside external source." Jim said.

"Perhaps you are right," Spock Prime said. "But your destiny is on the bridge."

"Somehow I would find myself there," Jim said. "Always." He looked up toward Spock Prime. "I know you are always going to be there for me, in any path of life, and I will be there for you. Somehow. Someway."

Spock Prime caught Jim's queen.

"Check mate." Spock Prime said.

Jim grinned.

"Two months and two days," Jim said. "About time you won."

Spock Prime awoke from his sleep. He walked out of the room in his Vulcan attire, even though he was on Earth, he went out to the porch. It was dark far as the eye could see. He saw a chess board on the table across from the outside bench. Spock Prime carefully picked it up then put it on the square table he sat at. It had all the chess pieces, black and white, all lined in their little respective order.

Spock Prime moved his chess piece.

Spock Prime looked at the sky.

He felt a little homesick.

Homesick for the Enterprise. The Enterprise he served on for five years. The ship they went through hell with, to the past, to the future, and to the present. They had gone through more then a average human can share. He had forged a deep trust and friendship with most of the bridge crew. Spock Prime heard what sounded to be a chess piece sliding. The stars were twinkling in the sky. Stars that were burning balls of fire slowly dimming down or already have dimmed down and their light will take millions of years to vanish until perfect night. Until the planet is consumed by the sun of course. Maybe never will the stars vanish, they had a tendency to become illogical.

Spock Prime looked over toward the chess board.

"Fascinating." Spock Prime said, moving his chess piece.

The Vulcan watched a white chess piece move forwards.

Spock Prime raised an eyebrow.

In thirty-two minutes, the white queen only had three of her protective chess pieces surrounding her. The third chess piece moved forwards, and Spock Prime gently kicked it off the chess board using his piece making it land on the side of the counter. Spock Prime looked up where he thoughts saw a familiar young face grinning back right at him. The face faded before Spock Prime's eyes, followed by the familiar voice, "You win, Mr Spock." Spock Prime easily took out the queen.

"Checkmate." Spock Prime said.

It was apparent that Spock Prime was playing chess with a ghost.

"Why, Spock, why are you up so early?" Came Bones Prime leaning against the doorway raising an eyebrow.

"I was playing chess with a ghost." Spock Prime said.

"Ah, a ghost really?" Bones Prime asked.

Spock Prime looked over sadly toward Bones Prime.

"I believe it was Jim." Spock Prime said.

"He's not dead in this timeline," Bones Prime said. "Ghosts can't follow us from reality to reality."

Spock Prime lowered his head with a sigh.

"So I was playing against my own mind?" Spock Prime asked.

". . . Spock, that's not what I meant," Bones Prime said. "Surely, you must have been playing against a ghost, but not. . . you know, we would be aware if Jim was haunting us."

Spock Prime raised his head up looking over toward Bones Prime.

"He would have left a sign." Spock Prime said.

"Exactly." Bones Prime said.

"So do you believe in ghosts, Leonard?" Spock Prime asked,

"Yes," Bones Prime said. "Always have, I told you that. Remember?"

"Negative," Spock Prime said. "I d. . . I do not remember." His face turned into concern. "I have an eidetic memory, I should remember that."

Bones Prime put one hand on Spock Prime's shoulder.

"We are not young men, anymore," Bones Prime said, in a low voice. "Spock."

"I hope this does not affect my memories of Jim." Spock Prime said.

Bones Prime took his hand off Spock Prime's shoulder.

"It is four fifty-five AM in the morning," Bones Prime said. "We are not going to have a grouchy Vulcan when we go to the fair."

"What fair?" Spock Prime asked.

"The Georgian Xenology fair," Bones Prime said. "It has a lot of aliens and fun, you'll like it! You are going to take a nap, get your beauty sleep, and I am going to read some of those medical journals. You should wake up at five thirty-two not . . . this early."

"I do not get grouchy." Spock Prime protested.

"The hell you do," Bones Prime said. "You do not think right when grouchy. I should be the grouchy one in this house!"

Spock Prime had a short tired laugh and his eyes slowly drifted to a close.

Bones Prime helped the Vulcan up and guided him back into the house. The dark screen door shut behind them gently. Bones Prime's cane made light taps on the wood. The Vulcan made a comment about 'My station is unattended' and Bones Prime replied with a 'you don't have a station, Spock, the new station is the kids station' which he believed didn't make sense in itself. Eventually Bones Prime came out of the house,and he looked down to see the chessboard had been reorganized except for the white queen. It was on the chair Spock Prime sat in.

Bones Prime picked up the chess piece then put it on the board and returned it to where it had been placed hours ago. He had a eerie feeling that someone was sitting in the rocking chair alongside the door beside where Spock had sat in. It was rocking back and forth, probably because of the wind, which was a reasonable explanation. Sure, Bones Prime did believe in ghosts, but this one had the most logical reason. Bones Prime put one hand on the rocking chair and he narrowed his eyes. His eyes were old and not as they used to be. He even squinted his eyes.

Nothing.

Nada.

He did not see anything.

"I am creeping myself out believing in these ghost stories." Bones Prime said, letting go of the rocking chair.

Bones Prime opened the screen door, went inside, and closed the second door behind him.

The rocking chair resumed rocking back and forth as our view backtracked. In the darkness we can see a figure with a bright yellow shirt sitting in the rocking chair with Caucasian skin. Now if someone tried to approach him or her, the figure would vanish out of sight. Some teenagers, who went past the house that night on the way home, would claim they saw a captain waving back at them but they could not see his face. They would come back that morning to discover three old men lived in there and not one was a captain. The rocking chair, though, would not move. Not until the three old men would come back.

And again the teenagers would see the figure in broad daylight wave at them as they passed. They couldn't see his face which was odd. They did know he had a hand. He had a head. He had a torso. He had legs. He had shoes. From then, rumors spread that the house was haunted, but not really, it was the front porch that was haunted. Every time, at night or day when the three men were home, when anyone drove by the house they would see a captain wave at them and they would wave back. The three old men would raise eyebrows, but mostly the Vulcan's eyebrows raised the highest, whenever the story was told to them.

A ghost story that stuck to the house for generations to come long after the three men passed away and the figure had vanished.

Possibly because he was waiting for them.

Some people theorized that's exactly what the ghost was doing.

Biding his time.

Waiting.

But to the present now, it was a intriguing story that perplexed the three old men.