"Joanna for me. Edith for you." Bones says, tipping back in his chair in the briefing room, running a hand over his face. "Wonder why she hasn't appeared to anyone else yet?"

"We said ourselves she acted….shy." I say. "Spock, nothing out of the ordinary has happened to you?"

"No, Captain." Spock says, lacing his fingers calmly in front of his face. "Perhaps because she knows I am less inclined to put stock in such superstitions."

" 'You have to believe it for it to be true'. I've heard that somewhere before." McCoy mutters. "Could be, Spock. Maybe she'd have a harder time influencing you."

"But you do believe she's there." I say, glancing sharply over. Spock looks down at his folded hands, lets out a low breath in what translates to his version of a sigh.

"As…..overly emotional as the doctor tends to be, I do not have reason to believe he would say he heard 'something' if he did not." He says at last, slowly. "While I still can not kin to the idea of a 'spirit', there is undeniably some presence that has affected both of you."

"So if it's not what we think it is, how do you explain it?" I ask, trying to keep the impatient snap from my voice.

"I have not had time to correlate a hypothesis yet, Captain," He drawls, and I loose the battle with myself when I all but growl- "You mean you don't know."

"Yet." Spock says, and I want to call him on the irritated sense I can hear in those words, like a wet cat. He sounds downright offended, and if I wasn't running on about four hours of sleep it might have been funny.

As it stands, it's all I can do not to growl something rude at him. McCoy raises a brow at me, as if sensing it, and I take a deep breath to steady myself.

"Well, then," I say, my tone light once more, "we're going to call it a ghost until we know what it actually is. Because it sure looked like-" I stop, aware of how insane it sounds but unable to change facts, "it looked and felt like one." I finish, more softly, closing my eyes. "Sorry," I add, for biting at him, Spock inclines his head slightly.

"It is as you said." He says. "She seems to be ultimately harmless. But her insistence on using voices you both find familiar is undoubtedly taxing."

Which is Spock for, 'I understand.' I smile slightly, my apology very much accepted, and push into a stand. "start correlating then, Mr. Spock," I say, making sure to let him hear my teasing. "or I'm going to have to call an exorcist."

_________________________________

I wouldn't. Call an exorcist, that is. Because really, our 'ghost' has been utterly harmless.

In one week I haven't seen her again, let alone as well as the day I managed to pin her to the bed, if only for a moment (and if only because she wanted me to.) I do hear her, again, though; sometimes her own voice, light and piping, and sometimes she still calls to me as Edith, and it's those moments that I usually stuff a pillow over my head (which I found works, for some reason or other; maybe she just can't fathom out what I'm doing to myself, because she stops and usually starts to pick at the pillow and coo like a bird. Once, I threw the pillow, more to see what would happen then anything. Still invisible, she caught it, and for the next ten minute proceeded to toss it to herself all over my quarters. She only stopped when I started to laugh, and said my name in utmost curiosity.)

She's still speaking to Bones as Joanna, and we quickly found the pattern there- he only heard her when he was stressed.

Then she'd pipe his name in Joanna's voice, and, once, disconcertingly, she even called him daddy. (I'd been there for that one, and threatened with bodily harm if I kept laughing.)

But only ever when he was stressed. "She seems to be attempting to comfort you in the only way she knows how. " Spock said, one evening. "She has possibly seen Joanna, in your memories perhaps, and is using her to try and 'calm' you."

"As if she can't understand the difference between the real person and herself imitating them."

"Or expects, perhaps, for it not to matter." Spock tips his head slightly. "Perhaps she-it-assumes that simply hearing the voice of a loved one is enough."

I stop, considering her honest confusion, her inability to understand why I'm so upset when she uses Edith's voice. Her use of Joanna's voice when Bones is stressed or frightened.

"Why is the Enterprise playing host to a woman with butterfly wings in the first place?" Bones asks, the next time we are together, eating. "Why would a ghost-or anything- be haunting this ship?"

"If you insist on calling it a 'ghost', doctor, I can not tell you." Spock sits back slowly. "However, there are any number of races we have yet to encounter, and we have seen that a few of those are capable of getting onto the ship in the most unconventional methods. And if 'it' is not a living being, there are anomalies in space that can cause bizarre events on a ship." Here he pauses, giving us both a don't get carried away look, or the Vulcan variation on such. "There are no life forms registering in this sector of the galaxy, however-including the one on this ship."

"So she's either hiding her presence from the ship's scanners somehow, or-"

"-not a life form."

"Which could mean she is an android-"

"Or a ghost." I finish, and can't help but grin at the subtle, exasperated look he gives me. Spock's never been a hard read; not for me, and not for McCoy, and I can't see why anyone would believe his claims of 'not feeling'. Sure, Bones forgets it from time to time, but he never honestly believes Spock doesn't feel; and neither do I.

These moments cement it.

I grin in return, propping my chair back-and as I do so, something tickles over the back of my neck. Every single hair on my body stands straight up, and I yelp at the cold, light touch, slapping a hand to the offended spot.

"Jim?" McCoy asks, and no sooner does he say it then I hear him curse and jump. Apparently she got to him, too, because there is an impish little giggle.

And then, suddenly, she is there, in all her butterfly winged glory, and hovering just an inch above the ground with her nose so close to Spock's it looks like she might kiss him. Her hands are on his wrists, and she's grinning that bright little-girl grin.

"I'm real as real, silly." She chirps, and if I was not holding my breath and waiting for whatever was going to happen, I would have laughed aloud at anyone calling Spock 'silly'. She tips her head again, and this time-

"So serious, Spock," She coos, and that is Amanda Greyson's voice as sure as I am sitting here, perfect in pitch, cadence, everything just as I remember her sounding. She reaches out to pat his cheek-he stops her smoothly, and she lands, staring at his hand gripping hers.

"Oh," She whispers, lifting her eyes to his. "Oh!" And suddenly she wrenches, twisting, throwing herself away from him.

"Spock-"

"-the hell?-"

Myself and McCoy, respectively. Bones is out of his seat insantly and the second Spock lets go of her, the girl flings herself towards me, staring up with those strange eyes now filled with tears.

"Jim Kirk!" She cries, in her own voice, not Edith's. She sounds like she's about to sob. A woman crying has never been something I handle well, and instinct had me reaching for her, making shushing sounds already in my throat before I even know I'm doing it.

But she's gone before my arms can make contact, leaving only a shaken Bones, an altogether too calm Spock, and a completely bewildered James Kirk in the room.