Title: The Ghost and Mr. Kirk

Rating: K+ (?)

Warnings; Maybe some mild language.

Summary: The Enterprise is haunted. No. Really. It is.

A/N: Short fic, once again; not a one-shot, I imagine, but probably no more then four or five chapters. Again, intended to be a rather light-hearted fic, but, to the person who asked- Dependable will be next, which will be something a little less so. Again, you guys who review rock my socks, and those of you who repeatedly r&r my stuff; you flatter me. ^_^ Thanks so much, everyone.

The Ghost and Mr. Kirk

The first time I become aware something is just not quite right on my ship is when my shirts start to disappear.

All of my shirts.

Of course, Bones feels it's all very funny-"They finally rebelled, did they?" He quips, sending a young ensign with a sprained wrist on her way and turning to face me with an impish grin.

"Haha, Bones." I growl. "I'm serious, something's not right."

"Jim, someone's probably playing a prank on you." He says, feeling something out a PADD and handing it over to a nurse. It's not an unreasonable assumption; not even the Captain is able to escape the curse of bored crewmembers during a slow week. (Let's face it; I don't scare anyone but the newest members of our crew, and even them not for long.) Pranks and jokes are also fairly common on the Enterprise, too.

Still, I can't shake the feeling that isn't my problem right now.

"Bones, no one would hide my shirts." Except maybe you-

"Chekov would." He says, without missing a beat, "and if Chekov does it, Sulu or Scotty would help him."

I snort. I've heard it said, when people think I can't hear, that Bones, Spock and I are 'The Big Three'-attached at the hip and impossible to keep down. But we're not the only three 'attached at the hip', and I've taken to thinking of Scott, Sulu and Chekov as 'The Three Musketeers'. Scott's fiercely protective of both of them, like an older brother- more so Chekov, of course. He's the youngest member of the bridge crew, and one of the youngest people on this ship, period. Scott seems to think of him as a kid brother.

But Bones has a point about Chekov, so when my shirts keep vanishing, I ask all three of them to come to my quarters the evening of the most recent attack. If I don't put an end to this soon, I'm going to be on the bridge in nothing more then black undershirts. (Until, heaven forbid, those start getting kidnapped.)

The three pile into my quarters near the end of the 'day'- we don't have 'day' and 'night', of course, we're in the middle of space. But we simulate it, and pretty well-so it would be about dusk on earth when they pile in like a trio of badly-behaved puppies.

But whatever they have done- I'm sure I'll find out about it eventually-taking my shirts was not it. When I ask about it, I get strong confusion and denial from all three- the kind you can't fake.

So I let them go-and tell them that if whatever they did do ends up affecting me somehow they'll all be on cleaning detail for a week and confined to quarters for far longer. I warn them that if it affects Mr. Spock or Doctor McCoy, they'll wish they were on cleaning detail for a week and confined to quarters for far longer.

Bones is vicious when he's in the mood for retribution.

To my surprise, about a week later the shirts are returned, unharmed and unchanged. I consider that the three musketeers had simply lied, but that's….a pretty illogical idea. They hadn't been faking their surprise and confusion- and with the exception of the Tribble Incident, they've never out-right lied to my face about something.

I ask the last few people on laundry detail (yes, everything is handled by computers, but those computers and machines must be told what to do), but they're as confused as Chekov, Scott, and Sulu were. They hadn't been aware of any problem, and there had been no glitches or errors….anywhere.

"Like I said, I bet they finally just rebelled." Bones drawls, one evening, after dinner, in his quarters. "After all, they're the first causality to be suffered in a bad situation."

I glance up, resisting the very childish urge to stick my tongue out at him. "And what, came back?"

"Well, Jim, clearly your shirts are female, and couldn't resist the urge to cling to your smooth, brawny body again, at significant risk to themselves." He quips, and childish or not, I yank his chair out from under him with a foot.

It only gets worse, though, after the shirts are returned.

Once, a few months ago, we ended up in a situation where a race of people who had been genetically altered had tried to take over the ship. (Or, erm, steal me, actually, as what more-or-less narrowed down to breeding stock. Flattering on the one hand, entirely discomforting on the other.) My point is, they'd moved much faster then we could, so that we could not see or even hear hem; but their speech translated over to us as the humming of bugs; like a mosquito. And one of them had spent her time before they'd 'stolen' me giving me what she called 'invisible kisses'. She'd brush up close, and I'd hear and feel her for just a heartbeat before she'd dance away.

Apparently she'd been kissing me. Oddly charming, in a way, if the whole situation hadn't been so unpleasant.

What I begin to feel the next day, after the shirts reaper, is very similar to that. So much so that I am jittery and on edge for a week, until Spock informs me that no one else on the ship has heard or seen anything odd, and nothing else strange happens.

But the invisible kisses continue. In my quarters, in the halls, sickbay, the bridge, engineering, observation deck, everywhere and anywhere. I'm so twitchy by the end of it that Bones hauls me into sickbay for a through mental and physical exam, with me snarling the entire time because I am fine, damn it, I'm not loosing my mind and I'm not stressed or sick or anything else, just tormented. Bones, of course, ignores me and puts me through my paces, anyway-and finds that I am perfectly healthy and whole. And sane, for goodness sakes. ("Well, as sane as you ever are," McCoy teases, and I tell him he really has no room to talk.)

Then, another week passes, and it stops.

McCoy suggests that we take shore leave; even Spock makes the suggestion that I'm overtired. I'm not. I didn't imagine anything that's happened, and Bones saw the evidence of the missing shirts, at least.

But after the odd 'kisses' stop, I start-hearing it.

And I start wondering if maybe Spock and Bones aren't more right then I'm willing to admit.

It's faint, at first; so much so I'm not even sure I hear what I think I do. But later, in the rec room, playing chess with Spock and enjoying the relaxed, playful atmosphere of the men and women around me, I'm sure of it.

"Jim?….."

"What, Bones?" I ask, absently, before I realize that McCoy isn't even in the room and the voice was distinctly female. Spock is staring at me, eyebrows raised.

"Captain, are you alright?" He asks slowly, the way you might ask a lunatic if they were alright.

"Fine." I snap, maybe a little more harshly then I should. "Just play the game, please."

I loose.

The voice gets louder as time passes, and more confident, too; soon it's not asking my name, it's stating it, as if calling me. It startles me awake at night, it has me responding before I realize I am, and it starts to laugh when that happens. A light, gentle giggle of delight.

"Jim Kirk," It coos at me, "James!" And it will not shut up. I tell Bones, who gives me something to help me sleep through it, at least- but the voice doesn't much care for that. I start waking up with blankets across the room and once, I woke up on the floor outside my own door with a very concerned Chekov shaking my shoulder and telling me that if I'm bleeding somewhere Doctor McCoy will probably not be happy. (The fact that he automatically assumed I was injured should probably concern me more then it actually does.)

It's when I see her that I finally come to my decision.

I am on the observation deck, because it's peaceful there and I can gather my thoughts. I like watching space go by. The stars are just as beautiful when you're among them as they are when laying on your back in the grass and staring up, wondering who and what lived up there and wanting nothing so much as to grab one; pluck it from the sky like a firefly just for a moment.

I can't touch the stars. But I've got the next best thing.

I'm watching the stars and blackness go by when I see a flicker of motion from the corner of my eye. I startle, spinning on my heel, and in the darkness and coolness of the observation deck I face my tormentor for the first time.

Well, I almost do. There is the familiar giggle, the whisper of my name, and something that might have been a woman slips into the walls of the Enterprise like mist.

Heart pounding, I leave the observation deck.

I do not hear her that night, and it's the next day when I finally corner Bones in sickbay, practically dragging Spock by the arm, and lock us all in his office.

"Bones," I say, the first thing out of my mouth before I can tuck my tail and change my mind, or either one of them can speak to patronize me, "the Enterprise is haunted."

"Haunted." Bones echoes, and Spock's eyebrows go up to his hairline. "Jim, really, I-"

I explain about the observation deck. Bones groans; Spock's eyebrow has now gone past his hairline and resides somewhere on the ceiling of the Enterprise herself.

"Jim, I really think you're just- overtired-"

"Bones, we have had nothing of any note happen for almost two months now," I growl, "what, exactly, am I overtired from?"

"The only other explanation is-"

"A ghost." I finish for him. "And after everything we have seen and done, you have trouble swallowing that- why, exactly?"

"There has never been any evidence of the paranormal, Captain." Spock says, very slowly. "Everything we have encountered has been rationally explained away."

"Then how do you logically, rationally, explain this away, Spock?"

There is no answer, and in a very twisted, horribly morbid way, I am satisfied.

The next day, I am hearing her voice again, and I realize with a jolt why I can't seem to escape from it.

Much like Sargon-also many, many months ago- her voice is coming from the walls themselves.

And at long last, Bones hears her, too.