The meeting with the senior staff went smoothly enough, which was rather impressive considering the evident fatigue of the crew and the weight of their next assignment. Kirk was eloquent, Doctor McCoy only complained once about the shipwide vaccines necessary to cross into the Romulan Neutral Zone, and Lieutenant Sulu and Commander Scott kept any inappropriate humor to a minimum.

Nyota was quiet and respectful as always, listening rather than waiting to speak.

To Spock's own chagrin, he occasionally allowed himself to be distracted by the captain. Kirk. Jim. The captain who had let slip back in his ready room that he supposed this new mission to mean that they would be expecting Spock's own counterpart as a guest onboard. He had said it as though he had expected from the beginning that Spock would merely agree with him, and it had taken Spock a few moments to master his surprise. It was not that it disconcerted him that the captain maintained contact with his counterpart. It was simply that he had not known. It was somewhat of a presumptuous invasion of privacy, should he have been disinclined to trust either party involved, to be an afterthought in matters which regarded himself.

However, he was not disinclined to trust either party, and so it would be quite simple to put aside, he was certain. Discomfort with the general idea of his counterpart had been easily surmountable in the past.

Pleased with this choice, he turned back to listening to Jim's words and observing Nyota, whose brown eyes were already on him. She offered him a little smile to which he raised a teasing eyebrow.

"And you should all have a list of the delegates."

"Spock. You're a delegate?" McCoy interrupted, looking down at his list.

Nyota glanced down, but didn't say anything.

"No, as you are aware, Doctor," Spock responded coolly, "my counterpart will fulfill the role he has in the future."

"Ain't that a couple o' types of mind trip," Scotty offered quietly and then looked up like he was embarrassed he had been audible.

Kirk looked slightly irritated, much to Nyota's interest. "Is there anything else?" he asked.

No response.

"All right, I'll need all paperwork on my desk tomorrow at start of shift. Dismissed."

Nyota waited for Spock to gather his things before following him into the hall.

"So, you don't seem too surprised," she offered.

Spock looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "What should surprise me?"

"The older you coming on board."

"It does not surprise me because I already knew."

Nyota nodded as they both entered the turbolift. There were two other people on already, so they ceased conversation until it let them out on Spock's floor. She would not take up much more of his time; today was a standing chess game that she had no desire to get in the middle of, nor stick around for.

"Are you all right with this?" she asked, once behind closed doors.

"With you here for now? I do not have reason to find it undesirable." Spock's eyebrow rose again as Nyota reached out and brushed his hand.

"Behave; you know what I'm asking. Are you not uncomfortable with having your older self onboard?"

"I do not think I will cause a problem." He chose the pronoun with a little amusement. She smiled and shook her head.

"If it doesn't bother you, then I'll try not to let it bother me."

"Does it make you uncomfortable?" he asked, genuinely curious.

Nyota nodded slowly. "It's a little like déjà-vu in reverse; there's a person who knows our future, not in the abstract, but who actually lived it. There are so many questions I wouldn't dare ask, and then there are some that are almost bursting to come out. And I haven't even met him yet. So yes, it makes me a little uncomfortable; Humans are a bit macabre when it comes to their futures, whether they should know or not." She smirked at him.

"It would be illogical for me to fear... myself based merely on when I came from." Spock knew that sentence was hardly correct, but conveyed the emotion and meaning as best as possible. "In any event, the captain knew of his arrival before even I did."

She blinked. "They speak? Still?"

"It would appear so."

"Does that bother you?"

Spock pondered for a moment. "I do not believe so," he said carefully. "I cannot restrict those who would have contact with my counterpart."

Nyota shook her head. "Agreed, but it's still weird. I'll see you later." She leaned forward and kissed him briefly, before letting herself out.

Spock mulled over Nyota's words before he moved to set up the chess board. Perhaps somewhere within he could acknowledge that it was, indeed, a little weird.

Vulcans were a reserved people. They considered carefully before they spoke and as a rule, made it a point to listen more often than not. As such, Spock had spent a good deal of his life watching others think.

James Kirk did not think like others.

He took the same time planning his chess moves that Spock did, set his chin into his hand in a manner common amongst ruminating Humans. But to watch the thoughts flit across his blue eyes was an experience. Countless scenarios considered and nearly immediately dismissed before the correct one was settled upon, leaps of logic Spock could not hope or desire to make, and so the move, once made, had never seemed logical to Spock until recently. It had taken him nearly a month to realize that Jim was taking into account not simply logical directions countermoves would take, but working out all of Spock's possible strategies all the way to checkmate in each.

All of this was based upon an understanding not simply of how an opponent would move, but of how Spock would move, and how he would respond to each of Jim's responses to those moves. And there had been discernible - albeit rarely followable - order behind it as early as their second game.

Impressively infuriating though it could be, their weekly chess match, if nothing else, reminded Spock of why exactly he had chosen to follow this man when Jim occasionally (or often) made it difficult to remember.

"Check," Jim said without raising his eyes from the board and Spock carefully utilized his own turn to move out of it. "We should try something else next time; we're both getting too good at this."

Spock lifted an eyebrow at him. "If by 'this' you are in fact referring to chess, Captain, I must point out that we have both been proficient at the game for a substantial period of time already."

"I meant against each other."

Jim was studying the board again and Spock used the time to word his response carefully. The suggestion was inspiring an oddly unpleasant sensation in him. "You no longer find our time together stimulating?" he asked.

Jim's eyes flicked up. They looked surprised. "Kind of a fallacy to jump right to that. Shouldn't you know better?" The tone was teasing and Spock had to stop himself from squirming. Jim's gaze returned downward. "Not what I meant at all. I never don't enjoy the chess. I just think we might enjoy other things too. You should come to poker night, sometime. You would kill at it. And the crew would love to see you there anyway; it'd make you seem more approachable."

Spock considered this, not for the truth of the statement, which he knew to be accurate, but for the meaning behind it, something he had learned to do in recent years. "Captain," he said. "I am aware that Humans often seek to introduce serious intentions in a deceptively light manner. Are you attempting to suggest that it would be beneficial to ship morale if I were, as you say, 'more approachable'?"

Jim laughed outright at that. Spock could acknowledge all laughter as a pleasing sound now, but it still never failed to startle him. "I'm not giving you an order, Spock," he said. "If I wanted to, I would; you're the last person I'd need to coddle. I just thought it'd be fun. You know, fun? Merrymaking and frolicking or... something."

"Frolicking, Captain?"

Jim rolled his eyes, a Human gesture of exasperation. "You know what I mean. Like chess. Pleasant. You'd like it, poker takes strategy too." Another disarming grin. "My kind."

Spock hesitated. "I suppose it would indeed be an opportunity to better learn your thought processes."

"That's it," Jim said. "Think of it like an experiment. Lots of illogical Human customs to study."

"In reference to illogical Humans, Captain-"

"-Jim."

"-Jim, I understand you authorized Commander Scott's-"

"-Ah, damn, I forgot about that-"

"-modifications to the warp drive, which I had already-"

"-I'll have to see how deep into it he is. I don't want us limping to the pick-up now at warp one-"

"-dismissed as expendable and perhaps dangerous-

"-Yeah, I know, sorry about-"

"-and while final decisions are, of course, in your hands, I would think it prudent if we did not encourage such duplicitous behavior, nor show apparent discord in view of the crew."

Jim stared at him, silent now, but like he was about to speak, and Spock knew on a level he did not customarily acknowledge that the captain was withholding himself from mentioning the 'discord' of the Narada incident and its culmination.

He only sighed in the end. "You're right. Sorry."

"Apology implies offense, Captain. I merely wish to optimize future behavior."

The smile was back, subtler this time. "Of course," Jim said. "I'll talk to Scotty. Knowing him, he already was thinking about pushing this back if he could after the meeting. He knows we're on another schedule now, going to meet the delegates."

"Indeed."

Jim gazed at the chess board again and it was here that Spock realized neither of them had made a move in some minutes. Jim stared at it carefully, and though it was his turn, Spock was unsure that he was contemplating strategy.

"Spock, does it..." He cleared his throat, "I don't know, bother you... that other you and I still talk? I mean, I hadn't really thought about it before all this, 'cause it's not so common, and I don't know, but... does it?"

Like the majority of Jim's moves, it was not one Spock had anticipated. "Nyota asked me something similar earlier this evening, regarding my sentiments on the whole toward my counterpart," he said. "I confess, I did not know quite how to answer her question, as I did not understand the impetus behind it."

"Well, she cares about you. Makes sense she'd ask."

"Indeed. I only meant I did not comprehend why it should 'bother me'."

Jim shrugged a shoulder. "I don't know." A touch of self-deprecating humor. "A Human thing, I guess. But I wouldn't want to continue if it did. Bother you."

Spock cocked his head and answered as honestly as he could. "I do not know of anything you would discuss with him which should."

Jim's expression turned odd where it was usually quite readable and Spock did not know how to respond to it or what part of his own reaction could have inspired it.

"Right," he finally said. "Good." And made his next move.

It was like clockwork these nights, and never failed.

"Oh, my God," Nyota moaned, and breathed out deeply.

She and Spock were tangled up in her sheets, surprisingly. He had arrived at her door with dark eyes and wandering hands, and there had been minimal conversation before clothes were off and they were on the bed. Most people saw Spock as stoic at all the times, and wondered how someone like her - a Human being completely in touch with the emotional spectrum - could get anything out of a relationship with him.

"Oh, please, right there," she said, and was rewarded with the momentary loss of her sight.

This was her Spock, the Spock she had all to herself that most people would consider a myth. He was between her legs, hot and hard as she lifted her hair from her shoulder, riding him almost desperately. He touched her face and his mind slid into hers, as it had many times before, crimson and swirls of gold and purple with flashes of green. She angled her hips and everything felt silver and shining, and he came with her name on his lips, quiet as a whisper.

Spock laid her gently on the bed next to him and turned his immense heat on her naked form. She smiled and snuggled closer, her fingers trailed designs on his pectoral muscle idly.

"Not that I'm complaining," she said with a satisfied grin, "but I hadn't expected you tonight."

Spock merely blinked and waited for his heart rate to return to normal. "I had no other plans that kept me from your company, and I desired it. Did I interrupt something?"

Nyota smiled and shook her head. "Absolutely nothing that could not wait. Will you sleep here?"

Already he could hear her breathing evening out and he did not think it logical for them to dress to merely disrobe again to sleep upon arrival in his own quarters. "I will remain here," he decided. She smiled and leaned forward to give him another kiss before she turned and fit her back against his chest, as was their normal position for sleep. Within a few moments Nyota was deeply asleep, evident by the light way she snored, although she claimed she never did. (How she would know for sure, or why she would not believe him, Spock was not certain.)

Not long after, he too realized he required slumber, and allowed himself to relax, but sleep did not come for some time.